Day: May 6, 2018

It seems the past weekend has left a lingering mark on the cryptocurrency industry.  With all top currencies suffering from small to medium-sized losses, a lot of bearish momentum materialized seemingly out of nowhere. It is possible this trend will reverse course soon. Until that happens, the Litecoin price won’t reclaim $175 anytime soon.

Litecoin Price Dip Seems Temporary

As is always the case when most cryptocurrencies start to regain a lot of value in quick succession, a dip seems inevitable. It is not uncommon for currencies to lose anywhere from 3% to 12% after two weeks of solid upward momentum. This past weekend illustrated that point perfectly, as most currencies are down by such percentiles. The Litecoin price, for example, lost just 4.9%, but it is still a bit of a setback for short-term speculators.

The past week has been pretty stable for the Litecoin price. With the momentum holding firm at $144 for the most part, it seemed evident an uptrend would form sooner or later. That did effectively happen, and it pushed the Litecoin price to just over $182. Very positive momentum overall, but it also led to a small decline a few days later. That decline is not necessarily something to work about, though.

With this 4.9% decline for the Litecoin price, the value has dropped to just below $165. Once the momentum returns, it seems a matter of time until LTC surpasses $175 again, but it remains unclear if and when that will happen exactly. With LTC losing just 1.19% over Bitcoin, there is no reason to panic as of yet. If there is no panic selling to speak of, the future Litecoin price will almost certainly be higher than what it is right now.

Litecoin hasn’t lost much trading volume either. More specifically, there is a lull in trading for all cryptocurrencies, as the volume dropped by nearly $13bn over the weekend. That is a very common trend and it seems to be a matter of time until things return to normal in this regard.  Negative cycles like these will always happen in the cryptocurrency world, but they can be overcome with relative ease if people keep a cool head.

OKEx is certainly making a name for itself when it comes to cryptocurrency trading. The platform generates a lot of volume with its USDT and BTC pairs. GDAX completes the top three with its USD trading pair. One would have expected Binance to be near the top three, but for now, the platform is in fifth and seventh place respectively. Only two fiat currency pairs in the top 10 is a bit worrisome, but also something that will correct itself eventually.

For the time being, it remains a bit unclear where all cryptocurrencies will head next. As such, it is also impossible to make any accurate Litecoin price predictions. Returning to $175 will happen eventually, but it may take anywhere from hours to days, or potentially even weeks. The Litecoin price is still in a good place right now, and looking at the bigger picture, the best has yet to come in 2018.

Real-world assets will force a change in blockchain governance, writes EY’s Paul Brody. Forks will still be possible, but will attract fewer users.

The old money guard is at it again. Warren Buffett at age 87 sat on stage Saturday with his elder business partner Charlie Munger who is 94 and made kindergarten grade comments about Bitcoin and the legitimacy of cryptocurrency once again.

Buffett and Munger at it Again.

Appearing like flesh and blood versions of Statler and Waldorf, the cantankerous old men from the Muppets Show Buffet and Munger bandied snide criticisms about Bitcoin back and forth in front of an audience gathered for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.

Buffett, known as the Oracle of Omaha for his history of predicting solid investments, started off making all his normal comments about Bitcoin being a non-asset and warning that it is “tool for charlatans” before remarking that it is”probably rat poison squared,” in answer to a question by an investor.

Charlie Munger then picked up the thread by telling Buffet ” I like cryptocurrencies a lot less than you do” before continuing in a wheezy kind of mumble to compare crypto to a kind of dementia and ending by saying

“it’s just disgusting, It’s like Someone else is trading turds and you decide I can’t be left out.”

These childish quotes from such distinguished men of finance come as no surprise to anyone who follows cryptocurrency. Just as their criticisms about the worthlessness of Bitcoin as an investment, because it’s digital and continuous warnings about the coming bubble burst have worn so thin as to no longer be newsworthy.

Buffett Admits He Doesn’t Understand Bitcoin

Munger who was quoted in February calling Bitcoin “asinine”  and Buffet have a long history of making crude childish remarks about a technology that buffet has gone on record saying he doesn’t understand when he told CNBC  “I get into enough trouble with the things I think I know something about. Why in the world should I take a long or short position in something I don’t know about?”

Munger and Buffet aren’t the only two old money Bitcoin bears who have made a habit of making juvenile digs about cryptocurrency. Jamie Dimon CEO and Chairman of financial giant JP Morgan Chase has called Bitcoin a “fraud” and “stupid” so many times he may as well have cards made up.

Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Schiller who is like to refer to Bitcoin as a fad and has time and again compared it to a Ponzi scheme may also have shed some light on why the old guard revert to such infantile insults when he said that Cryptocurrency disrupts the traditional view of banking.

Cryptocurrency – Bitcoin was created to do just that, disrupt the system that has made men like buffet fabulously rich and because he and Munger and so many other of the old money guard don’t like that, don’t understand that or possibly understand what they have to lose from a decentralized currency is just what keeps them calling Bitcoin “Stupid” “fake” and comparing it to a “turd”.

The post Old Investors Resort to Childish Taunts About Bitcoin, Optimistic Trend appeared first on NewsBTC.

FOMO Moments

The crypto correction is in full effect this morning as Asia joins the big selloff. Upward progress is slow and steady but when markets fall they drop fast. Total market capitalization has fallen well below $450 billion and continues to slide. Bitcoin never made it to $10k and has retreated back 5.4% to $9,340 this morning. Altcoins have made heavier losses, Iota is suffering the most falling 13% on the day. Everything is in the red at the moment as traders take profits from the recent run, and only two cryptocurrencies are in the green in the top 50 at the time of writing and they are Golem and DigixDAO.

A sea of red faces those looking at Coinmarketcap during this morning’s Asian trading session. However, as we have seen many times before DigixDAO has defied the selloff and has actually made gains, today it is up 6.5%. Currently trading at $273, up from $257 this time yesterday, over the week DGD has been flat trading at exactly the same level this time last Monday. The monthly chart has seen a 28% gain for DigixDAO which is way behind a lot of the other altcoins showing three figures on the month. Against Bitcoin which has fallen, DGD is up 13% on the day to 2956000 satoshis from 2614000 sats this time yesterday. Weekly gains on BTC have been marginal and over the month DGD has actually lost 4% from 3121000 satoshis this time last month.

This gold based cryptocurrency always seems to perform well when all other altcoins are bleeding. In addition to this time tested pattern, Olympus Labs and Digix have partnered to bring tokenized gold DGX into the Olympus ecosystem as revealed by a recent tweet and medium post. DGD was also listed on the decentralized Kyber Network last week which has increased trade options.

Binance controls the majority of DGD trade with just under 90% of the total, and Huobi takes second place. Total trade volume has jumped 400% from $3.8 million to $19 million in 24 hours. DigixDAO has a market cap of $546 million which ranks it down in 46^th spot.

Total crypto market capitalization has declined 7.46% over the past 24 hours wiping out the past three day’s gains in less than one. Current levels are around $435 billion, so this could be just an expected market correction. If markets continue to fall below $400 billion we could be in for another bear run.

The only other altcoin in the green today is Golem which is up just under 4% on the day. All others have lost, many in double figure percentages with Iota, Ripple, Neo, Dash, OmiseGO, and Bitcoin Gold getting hit the hardest during the Asian trading session.

More on Digix can be found here: https://digix.global/

FOMO Moments is a section that takes a daily look at the top 25 altcoins during the Asian trading session and analyses the best performing one, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.

The post Asian Altcoin Trading Update: DigixDAO Defies Crypto Correction appeared first on NewsBTC.

Decentralized exchanges could unlock the potential of blockchains, but they face pragmatic issues today in gaining the marketshare of alternatives.

Big news in the crypto world – NAGA and Ontology have announced the start of a long-term strategic partnership to commence a significant and powerful change in business operations, and bring high-performance public blockchains that include a series of complete distributed ledgers and smart contract systems to the massive financial technology markets.

The partnership of the two giants will be aimed at exploring application development, outreach, incubation, and building a new generation of public blockchain infrastructure and a distributed trust ecosystem. The purpose will be to support real business applications and scenarios.

NAGA currently has a number of big projects in operation: NAGA WALLET, NAGA TRADER, NAGA CARD, NAGA COIN (NGC) and several other projects in development. Thus, the partnership will not only help to structurize business processes at NAGA, but can potentially mean that one of the biggest Crypto Ecosystems will soon be powered by the Ontology Platform.

NAGA Founder and Executive Director Benjamin Bilski claimed:

We are super excited about the Ontology project and we are eager to announce new developments in cooperation with the platform. We believe that it will help to boost and grow our business exponentially.

NAGA Founder and Executive Director Yasin Sebastian Quresh added:

We think that this partnership can really change the way crypto companies act and execute their promises. Our and Ontology’s precision and hard-working ethos will help us to not only deliver products ahead of the roadmap, but to also make them more reliable and more valuable for the whole community.

Ontology Founder Jun Li said:

We are happy to welcome NAGA to build up the application ecosystem through wielding Ontology’s next-generation public chain infrastructure. The NAGA Group AG (N4G) is a leading publicly listed German FinTech firm, backed by Fosun Group and the German Stock Exchange (Deutsche Börse AG). We feel confident that together we can open up the international market, expand the Ontology ecosystem, and advance global blockchain development.

Description of partnership

While NAGA aims at financial inclusion across the globe, as well as the provision of the best industry-leading products; Ontology focuses on trust, identity, data exchange and authorization. The wide range of industries that Ontology targets, such as insurance, government, and medicine, makes it a wide-scale project that can provide even greater efficiency and trust within NAGA’s ecosystem.

NAGA Brief

The NAGA Group (NAGA) is a German publicly listed FinTech company with a focus on financial markets, virtual goods and cryptocurrencies. The company’s goal is to drive the development, marketing and growth of disruptive applications for financial  technology, and to actively participate in the change and opening up of the existing financial system. The word “NAGA” is Sanskrit and means “Cobra snake”. It is also the name of the world’s hottest chili variety. In 2017, NAGA completed a successful IPO and established the NAGA COIN (NGC) in cooperation with its partner Naga Development Association Ltd. during an ICO.

Ontology Brief

Ontology is a new high-performance public multi-chain project and a distributed trust collaboration platform. Ontology provides new high-performance public blockchains that include a series of distributed ledger and smart contract systems. Ontology blockchain framework supports public blockchain systems and is able to customize different public blockchains for different applications. Ontology supports collaboration amongst chain networks with its various protocol groups.

Ontology will constantly provide common modules on the underlying infrastructure for different kinds of distributed scenarios, such as those for the distributed digital identity framework, distributed data exchange protocol, and so on. Based on specific scenario requirements, Ontology will continue to develop new common modules.

Contact information of both companies:

NAGA Press Dpt.:

Naga Development Association Ltd.

123 Barrack Road

Belize City

Belize

Email: [email protected]

Ontology

Chloe Fu

Email: [email protected]

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

May 6, 2018, Tallinn, Estonia and Kyiv, Ukraine, – Paytomat, the decentralized payment solution for crypto, has announced that it has partnered with ZenCash, the privacy coin for decentralized communications and transactions. Through the cooperation, ZenCash became available as a payment method via Paytomat. Paytomat has already introduced an extension to receive payments in crypto on existing POS (point-of-sale) terminals using Poster, Profit Solutions and 1C. Operating across 150 retail businesses, it currently supports the widest variety of cryptocurrencies: ZEN, XEM, LTC, DASH, WAVES, ETH, BCH, NANO, DCR, XZC and BTC.

Yurii Olentir, Paytomat CEO, said: “The ZenCash philosophy of borderless and secure transactions also lies at the heart of the Paytomat business idea. We believe that cryptocurrencies will become a common payment method, and we’re committed to increasing their transactional usage in everyday life with our feature-rich and user-friendly payment system”.

Paytomat will use its unique decentralized franchise model as a big part of the go-to-market plan. “We invite the great ZenCash community to join Paytomat. Help us to establish fiat-to-crypto gateways, build direct relationships with POS vendors, or help merchants start accepting cryptocurrency, and receive rewards within the Paytomat loyalty program,” – Yurii added.

Robert Viglione, Co-Founder of ZenCash, said: “ZenCash’s integration as a form of payment in the Paytomat platform represents a critical step forward in making Zen becomes a more widely adopted and easily accessible cryptocurrency. We are confident that this partnership will incentivize more users to adopt ZenCash as a means of secure and private payment and advance our mission of promoting financial freedom around the world.”

Previously, Paytomat reported closing its pre-sale early, having sold 5,000,000 PTI tokens and reaching its softcap. With this success, Paytomat shifted its focus to closer cooperation with crypto core teams and investment funds aiming to cover 85% of the token sale with institutional contributors. The main sale is scheduled for August 1-20, Whitelist registration is currently open. Tokens that were already sold during the pre-sale will be distributed to their holders 10 days after the main sale ends.Join the Paytomat official Telegram for 24/7 support: https://t.me/paytomat. Follow the Paytomat Twitter for the latest news: https://twitter.com/paytomat

About Paytomat

Paytomat is a blockchain-based payment processing system created to help merchants, consumers and crypto core teams to find each other and create real life traction for cryptocurrencies as an emerging method of everyday payments. Built as a decentralized autonomous organization and decentralized franchise, Paytomat features a unique loyalty program based on PTM coin, incentivizing merchants to accept payments in crypto, and PTX tokens, thereby incentivizing customers to pay with crypto. For more information visit https://media.paytomat.com. Media contacts: [email protected]

About ZenCash

ZenCash, the privacy coin for borderless, decentralized communications and transactions, is the first and most important product in the Zen portfolio. Zen launched its blockchain in Spring 2017 with a vision of creating a truly private ecosystem for messaging and payments. Zen provides privacy and networking infrastructure for secure and anonymous collaboration. For more information, visit zencash.com.

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

The Education Ecosystem is powered by Education tokens (LEDU). These tokens are used for all transactions on the LiveEdu platform – the first for the Education Ecosystem. Tokens minted following their crowdsale were allocated for different purposes, as explained in this article. However, due to a change in the original plan for sourcing of tokens to use on the LiveEdu platform, on July 31st 2018, 30 million Education tokens will be burnt.

Tokens for subscribers on the LiveEdu platform will now be sourced from exchanges instead of from the subscription pool. Consequently, a portion of the subscription pool tokens will be burned. In addition, a portion of the tokens originally allocated for API Ecosystem Developers and Supporters (Quality Assurance & Moderation) will also be burned and sourced from exchanges if further tokens are required.

New Offices

Education Ecosystem recently opened a new office in Kiev and will soon be opening another in Santa Monica. They are in the process of hiring 3 new engineers who will be joining the team at the engineering office in Kiev.

In 2019, they will also be opening a China office as they continue expansion into the Asia Pacific region. With three offices in areas where the majority of their users are located, they will be able to provide more value to the ecosystem and achieve their goal of becoming the world’s largest project learning platform, decentralized on the blockchain.

Get Education Token (LEDU)

Get Education tokens now with ETH or BTC on Bibox or Gate.io. Read more about Education token on their project page and ask any questions you might have in their Telegram group chat.

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

CryptoSolarTech, a blockchain start-up dedicated to addressing the problem of high energy consumption in cryptocurrency mining, has just completed a successful pre-ICO phase of their token sale campaign and broadly surpassed the softcap. A total supply of 1260 million tokens called CryptoSolarTech tokens (CST) is up for grabs during this ICO.  

May 6, 2018

CryptoSolarTech is pleased to announce the successful completion of the pre-ICO phase of their token sale campaign. A blockchain start-up, this pioneering venture looks to fix one of the glaring problems of cryptocurrency mining by making it energy-efficient and environment-friendly. Their token sale campaign will continue until July 14, offering a total supply of 1260 million proprietary tokens of the ecosystem named CryptoSolarTech tokens (CST) with a minimum investment of 100 tokens. The collected funds during the ICO will be used to both construct a solar photovoltaic pool and build the biggest mining farm in Spain.

With the rapidly growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, the mining of different crypto coins have become commonplace these days. However, this mining process consumes a huge amount of energy for the necessary complex mathematical calculations. In countries with cheaper energy cost due to the abundance of coal and oil, indiscriminate mining has already resulted in a significant increase in CO2 emissions. There is no denying the fact that in order to ensure a better future for the rapidly growing crypto economy, the problem of high energy consumption must be addressed.  

A company based in Spain, CryptoSolarTech proposes to solve the present scenario of cryptocurrency mining by creating a solar photovoltaic pool capable of generating 45,000kW of energy. With this objective, they have already signed a fifteen year power purchase contract with Respira Energía, an organization that provides electricity to consumers at wholesale prices with a guarantee of 100% CO2 free production. Respira Energía will play a pivotal role in CryptoSolarTech’s efforts to make mining sustainable and profitable, without the need for the common form of electricity.

CryptoSolarTech informs that their upcoming solar project will comprise of ten solar plants with an investment of €42.8 million. The mining center will be located in Malaga. Whereas, the solar plants will all be installed in the southernmost and the sunniest region in Spain, Andalusia near Sevilla. The uniqueness of this project lies in the fact that it will have its own solar plants as well as mining infrastructure. Though there have been some similar projects in the past, but they were not equipped with self-mining set-up.

“The operation will be based in one of the sunniest areas of Europe. Our team has an extensive experience of in mining operations,” explains Pablo Alonso, co-founder and CEO at CryptoSolarTech. “We have no doubt that this is a winning package with excellent returns that any crypto enthusiasts will be interested in.”

CryptoSolarTech token (CST), an ERC-20 type token, will be a key component of the CryptoSolarTech ecosystem. “Possession of this digital asset will indicate ownership of a fraction of a cryptocurrency mining farm and a photovoltaic solar energy plant. Users of this platform will be able to obtain their own cryptocurrencies during the CryptoSolarTech ICO in a farm where around three thousand equipment are to be installed” says Alain Aguirre, co-founder and director of the mining operation.             

The Ethereum public Blockchain will be used for the management, generation of income and start-up of the physical assets that make up this project. The primary objective of the ongoing ICO is to create a cryptocurrency mining farm and a photovoltaic plant of solar panels to generate electricity. The company informs that 80% of the funds raised through the ICO will be used for the development of the mining platform, the acquisition of land and construction of several solar power plants, the acquisition of an industrial warehouse, and the servers. Pool platform development, licenses, infrastructure issues, and maintenance will consume the remaining 20%.

The future plan for CryptoSolarTech includes applying for an environmental approval request for the project, authorization for the public construction, and grid-connection of the power plants in June, 2018. The acquisition of land and the industrial warehouse is expected to be completed by September. The launch the application for the construction permit for the solar PV projects has been scheduled in October.

Mentioned below are some key points related to the ICO campaign:

Total supply of tokens: 1.260.000.000 

Number of Tokens for Sale: 1.008.000.000 (80%)

SOFT-CAP: 983.733 €

HARD-CAP: 71.400.000 €

Accepted Currencies: ETH, FIAT

176, 900,524 CST tokens were sold during the just concluded pre-ICO phase, raising 8.845,026 €.   

To find out more, please visit https://CryptoSolarTech.org/en/

About CryptoSolarTech:  CryptoSolarTech is a project oriented towards the development of a platform for clean, ecological and profitable mining with efficient results. It will provide a photovoltaic plant that will generate power capable of obtaining a performance of 45.000 kW. In its fully functional form, the project looks all set to make cryptocurrency mining energy-efficient like never before.

Contact: Sara Picazo

Website: https://CryptoSolarTech.org/en/

Email: [email protected]

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

Icelandic police think Chinese authorities may have discovered where its 6,000 missing bitcoin mining computers have gone.