Day: May 11, 2018

The crypto markets are set to end the second week of May on a low note, with all but a few, such as bytecoin and zilliqa, showing significant losses.

The cryptocurrency market turned upside down on Friday, having lost about $50 billion market capitalization overnight.

With the exception of only Augur, Nuls, and Tether, the whole list of top 100 digital currencies are on the red. The dreadful sentiment seems to be a reaction to reports that South Korea’s exchange Upbit is suspected of fraud.

Cryptocurrency Market Plunges as South Korea’s Upbit Exchange Suspected of Fraud

The price of Bitcoin dropped below the $9,000 mark and Ethereum failed at the $700 handle within the period of 24 hours as South Korea’s cryptocurrency ecosystem awaits further news regarding the suspected fraud executed by one of the largest operators in the country, Upbit.

What is now known is that local mainstream media outlets have reported that a joint action between the Korean Financial Intelligence Unit (KIU), the Financial Services Commission, and Seoul Police, has resulted in the raid of Upbit’s offices. The authorities suspect the management team has falsely reported its deposited funds. 

Ran Neu-Ner, the host of the Crypto Trader show on CNBC Africa, has confirmed the cryptocurrency market is being drained as concerned users take their funds out of the Upbit exchange. As digital currency investors are very likely withdrawing their assets only to deposit them with another operator, the $50 billion lost in a period of a few hours might return very swiftly.

Korea: This selling is coming from people taking their funds out of Upbit as they are concerned. These people are crypto investors and won’t leave crypto- they will go to other exchanges and buy there… expect a huge bounce.

— Ran NeuNer (@cryptomanran) May 11, 2018

The cryptocurrency exchange has notified its clients on the matter and explained that its platform and services are continuing operation. Customers are still able to make transactions and withdrawals, according to the company who ensures that client assets are safe.

“Upbit is currently under investigation by prosecutors and is cooperating.”

The South Korean operator dealt approximately $1.6 billion of digital currency trades in the last 24 hours, which makes it the largest cryptocurrency in the country and the fourth in the world by daily trading volumes.

Following a number of regulatory discussions to curb excessive speculation and money laundering, Korean authorities have banned initial coin offerings (ICOs) as well as foreigners and financial institutions from using local exchanges. The financial watchdog also raided a number of venues to enforce the legislation put in place, especially after the infamous Coincheck hack.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Various blockchain and cryptocurrency companies are looking to revolutionize the way in which people trade. Right now, trades occur through centralized platforms, which bring a lot of risks and problems to the table. TradeConnect is a venture designed to shake things up in the years to come.

The TradeConnect Concept

Competition in the financial industry often leads to innovative solutions. TradeConnect is designed to let traders exchange any financial asset instantly and without intermediaries. It is similar to a decentralized exchange model, although there are some key differences to take note of as well. Combining blockchain tech with financial trading seems like a powerful concept, assuming projects like TradeConnect can deliver.

Under the Hood

While TradeConnect mainly relies on blockchain, it is not the only technology to be utilized. As the project’s web page explains, there will be support for artificial intelligence, which is something we’ve been seeing more and more of in the financial sector. Using AI will, according to the team, lead to a higher degree of flexibility and personalized trading.

The removal of intermediaries is not just done for ideological reasons. In a practical trading environment, trades need to be executed immediately without a central point of failure. TradeConnect connects individuals and institutions with one another to create a balanced playing field. How this will play out exactly remains to be seen.

The trading aspect of TradeConnect will mainly rely on contracts. Said contracts will reside on the blockchain powering this ecosystem and can be verified at all times. It is this technology which allows for instant settlement. Although other projects are thinking along the same lines, TradeConnect can prove to be successful in its own way.

The Thinkcoin Token

A project such as TradeConnect seemingly cannot exist without its own native currency. This particular currency is aptly named Thinkcoin and will be sold through an initial coin offering. Users will be able to use ThinkCoin – or TCO for short – as a unit for all trades on the TradeConnect network. This applies to CFDs, Forex, commodities, shares, and so forth.

What’s Next for TradeConnect?

Although TradeConnect has a working MVP in the form of a mobile application for both Android and iOS, there is still much work to be done. The official roadmap does not include much information, other than getting the token listed on various exchanges by next month. Additionally, work on the mobile app, as well as the native technology, will continue behind the scenes.

Virtual Reality (VR) and other forms of visual reality technologies are making their way into classrooms, learning centres and all parts of the education experience from children to adults. Many have gone so far as to labelling it the future of education. But, the nascent technology is still in infancy for mass adoption by the education circles and there is a need to undergo research on its impacts.

The most important impact according to a nation-wide survey in the US by Samsung is learning and keeping students engaged in the classroom as 86 percent of the teachers felt that it was a challenge that only technology could achieve.

ImmVRse, a decentralized VR content platform has revealed that it is partnering with the Kingston University and Imperial College London to research into VR and its impacts in education, as well as other sectors.

VR and Neural Activity

The most important impact on VR is arguably going to be in understanding the effect of the technology on the neural activity of the brain. ImmVRse and its research team is trying to find answers to how much of an impact is on the individual’s ability to absorb information.

VR is going to affect millions of people and their lives in the near future so it is necessary that we get to know how much of an impact VR has on the neural regions.

For this purpose, ImmVRse has also announced a crucial partnership with an innovative company Basis Neuro. Basis Neuro is working on a range of totally brain-controlled gadgets and services. The partnership will see ImmVRse benefit from the proprietary algorithms developed by their partner for analyzing brain signals which will ultimately help the company in understanding and putting to use the complex relationship between VR and neural activity.

ImmVRse-VR Content Platform

ImmVRse is primarily a VR content sharing platform specifically designed to cater for the needs of the VR community while benefiting from the immense potential of Blockchain Technology and decentralization. VR content creators on the platform will be incentivized with native tokens of the ImmVRse platform while at the same time providing a cutting edge viewing experience for a cutting edge technology like VR.

The ImmVRse team

Led by CEO Farabi Shayor, the team has a plethora of talent for developing market deliverables, brand identities, marketing, IT project management, software development, etc. Limon Rehman is COO & co-founder while other important personnel include Adrian Chan, the Head of Marketing, Mark Higgins the Chief Information Officer and Peter Gostincar, Chief Technology Officer.

To learn more visit the Website: https://immvr.se/

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Infinito Wallet, a fintech startup headquartered in the Isle of Man, UK, has recently added support for NEO and NEP5 Tokens.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

Thanks to this feature, NEO holders can now store not only NEO and NEP5 tokens like GAS, ONT, THEKEY and others, but also BTC, BCH, LTC, DASH, DOGE, ETH, and thousands of ERC20 tokens.  

All NEP-5 tokens

Recently, Infinito Wallet has been able to store, send, and receive all NEP-5 tokens. It is also working to include support of new NEO-based projects such as Aphelion, Trinity, Qlink, THEKEY and future NEP-5 tokens.

Users can download the app from the App Store or from Google Play.

According to the company, Infinito Wallet is the first and only wallet that can use a single passphrase for all ERC20 and NEP-5 tokens.

NEO, formerly Antshares, is sometimes referred to as the “Ethereum of China”. Its main goal is to be the distributed network for the “smart economy”.

It has the NEO and GAS cryptocurrencies associated with it. Much like Ethereum, it allows for building of decentralized applications (Dapps) thanks to its smart contracts. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum which value anonymity, NEO puts emphasis on identity verifications and compliance.

NEO was built by Chinese blockchain entrepreneur Da Hongfei and is said to be supported by the Chinese government as its stance on cryptocurrencies evolves.

It incorporates a number of tokens with different functionalities including GAS, ONT, RPX, ZPT, DBC, QLC and others.

The wallet

The Infinito Wallet allows users to store, send and receive multiple currencies and tokens. It supports leading transactional cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dash, Neo, and Dogecoin. It also enables access to leading smart contract blockchain tokens such as ETH, ERC20, NEO NEP-5, and more to come on its roadmap. In June 2018, it plans to add support for EOS.  

Currencies in the wallet have a specific private key for setting up new wallets, sending or receiving funds protected by an in-app encryption mechanism. In addition, it requires fingerprint identification to unlock the wallet app. In case a user password is compromised, the app protects owners in terms of decisions about sending and storing funds.

Users who need to store, transfer and use cryptocurrencies across different applications, platforms, and services can take advantage of a wallet connection feature. Remembering and copying multiple addresses for fund transfer takes time and increases the risk of mistakes. The feature removes manual work and enables users to transfer coins from Infinito Wallet to a range of third-party platforms including different exchanges, Dapps, and various blockchain services, the company says.

ICO features

Infinito Wallet has launched a feature helping users participate in partner ICOs. Thanks to a special ICO tab, investors are protected from fraudulent ICOs. They can access official ICO information and directions on how to send funds to a given ICO company.

To protect investors from illegitimate ICOs, the wallet app has partnered with a number of selected ICO companies. Users can scan a special QR code on a given ICO website which imports the respective token into their dashboard with a Verisign mark. This indicates that the token and its smart contract are officially verified and belong to the given ICO company. This is also meant to simplify the complex process of adding a customized token to a wallet.

Infinito Wallet launched in December 2017 and by the end of 2018 it plans to expand its partnership network to integrate additional features and services including crypto exchanges, identification and know your customer (KYC) solutions, and other blockchain-related business services. It also plans to publish its source code online.

Infinito Wallet, registered in the Isle of Man, says its sole objective is to become the world’s market-leading crypto wallet. The company now boasts a team of more than 180 in-house blockchain developers, marketers, researchers and strategic planners.

Huawei phone users will be able to download a Bitmain developed cold storage wallet app for Bitcoin for the first time starting today.

Bitcoin Wallet App Available to Huawei Phones Today

The third largest mobile handset maker in the world, Huawei Technologies Co., a Chinese multinational communications technology company, announced that a new Bitcoin (BTC) wallet app will be available to download for their mobile phone users starting today, the South China Morning Post reported.

Set to be the first digital currency app for Huawei phones the Huawei AppGallery will be pre-installed on all new smartphone models, with older phones in Q2 2018.

The release of the Bitcoin wallet app is likely to have the largest impact in China where Huawei is the top phone seller. The Chinese government blocks Android’s Google Play Store as well parts of iTunes limiting access to apps from around the world. Though China has essentially shut down cryptocurrency trading many people in the country still own Bitcoin and other alt currencies.

Huawei made an earlier announcement this year that it would develop a smartphone which would support decentralized applications (dApp) running on blockchain technology. The companies global market share was 11.8 percent in the first quarter and it shipped 90.9 million units last year in the Chinese market alone.

Alejandro de la Torre, BTC.com’s vice-president of business operations told the SCMP that:

“The use of cashless payments with apps is very big and the traditional banking system is lacking, so there’s a good use case for crypto payments to grow there. It’s a good opportunity to tap into the Chinese market.”

Wallet App Developed by Dominant Mining Company Bitmain

BTC.com is owned by mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain technologies which also controls the largest Bitcoin mining pool in the world and has been in the news recently due to its release of it’s ASIC hardware for mining Ethereum.

China-based Bitmain manufactures Bitcoin mining hardware which has dominated the market and all but put small home PC and GPU miners out of business. With the release of their Antminer E3, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) engineered for mining Ethereum, fears arose that the same kind of ‘decentralization’ would happen with Ether, the native token to Ethereum.

That move prompted Ethereum developer Piper Merriam to cast out a proposal to the Ethereum community on whether or not to create a hard fork which would render the Bitmain ASICs hardware virtually obsolete and thus maintain decentralization.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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SparkLabs Group , which has the largest accelerator network in Asia and operates global venture capital funds, has launched the first startup accelerator security token offering through their Smart City & Smart Planet Fund.  SparkLabs has engaged with Argon Group, a leading digital finance advisory firm, to launch this new offering.

Individual and institutional investors across the globe will be able to invest into this new fund offering that will equally invest into SparkLabs’ IoT & Smart City accelerator fund and SparkLabs Cultiv8 fund, which is an agtech, food tech and sustainability accelerator.

SparkLabs IoT & Smart City accelerator is a primary innovation partner for Songdo, South Korea’s $35 billion smart city built from the ground up. SparkLabs Cultiv8 accelerator is a primary partner with the Government of New South Wales’ Department of Primary Industries for an agtech, foodtech and sustainability accelerator. The local government has given access to over 13,000 hectares (32,123 acres) of experimental farmland and 25 world-class research stations (i.e. fisheries, water, biosecurity, food safety) in Australia.

“SparkLabs has been very conservative in our approach and viewpoints on the cryptocurrency space and token offerings.  We have been concerned that many utility tokens are in fact securities and have viewed this space with some trepidation.  After meticulous diligence, we have now decided to jump into the pool a bit with a security token offering that we believe is conservative and provides a better understanding for venture capitalists on how this can affect our industry in the years to come,” stated Jimmy Kim, Co-founder of SparkLabs Group and former CFO of Nexon (South Korea’s largest online gaming company).  Additionally, Mr. Kim’s most recent startup, N3N, was Cisco’s first IoT investment.

The SparkLabs token is not a utility token and is simply a smart contract that represents an investor’s (“Limited Partners”) equity into its fund vehicle that will have equal holdings in start-up companies that are associated with SparkLabs IoT & Smart City Accelerator in Songdo, South Korea and SparkLabs Cultiv8 Accelerator in Orange, Australia.

“We believe our Smart City & Smart Planet Fund allows people across the globe to invest into two accelerator funds that can truly change the world in terms of urban innovation, innovation in agriculture, and how we interact with our planet. Both accelerators have excellent partners, such as Australia’s Government of New South Wales which generously provided access to over 30,000 acres of farmland for our startups to utilize as a test bed,” explained Frank Meehan, Co-founder of SparkLabs Group.  Mr. Meehan was born and raised in Australia and is currently living in London. Prior to launching SparkLabs, he was best known for leading DeepMind’s Series A (acquired by Google) and sat on Siri’s board of directors until it was acquired by Apple.

“Argon Group is excited to be working with SparkLabs on this new and creative development for venture capital.  I believe that SparkLabs is an imaginative accelerator, and, in my view, it comes as no surprise to me that they are leading an effort combining both pioneering urban and environment planning and an innovative approach to capital raising,”  said Elliot Han, Managing Director at Argon Group.

The post SparkLabs Launches Its Smart Planet Fund as the First Startup Accelerator Security Token Offering appeared first on NewsBTC.

Major tech companies are showing increased interest in creating their own currencies. Although such ventures are nothing new, more and more companies have been attempting to create actual cryptocurrencies. LINE is the latest firm to be doing so, albeit in a slightly different manner.

LINE Aims to Reward its Users

Ever since Telegram made its ICO plans public – and subsequently canceled them – other technology firms have begun paying more attention to the idea of creating their own cryptocurrency. Such a native currency makes a lot of sense in some ways, especially when it comes to engaging with users in a more direct manner.

LINE, the company known for its popular instant messaging solution in Asia, is looking to create such a cryptocurrency in the near future. Said currency will be known as LINE Q and will mainly serve the purpose of rewarding users based on their participation on the platform. After all, such platforms wouldn’t be successful without the users who rely on it on a regular basis.

Not too many details are known about LINE Q at this point in time. We do know that LINE has been working on its own blockchain infrastructure for quite some time now. Creating a native currency powered by this blockchain makes a lot of sense. A community-driven question-and-answer knowledge market currency will certainly be a valuable addition to LINE, although its long-term success is not guaranteed.

Unlike what most people may expect, this currency will not be sold through an initial coin offering or anything of the sort. Instead, it will be created for the sole purpose of rewarding users and issuing tokens as compensation. The company prides itself on not selling these tokens to raise extra money, but rather to create a useful real-life service through a blockchain-based ecosystem.

LINE CTO Park Euivin commented on the project:

Even though Google is a giant company and has many technical strengths . . . LINE has over 200 million messenger users as well as abundant service application experience[s] which can give us a competitive edge in the blockchain industry.

No one will deny the success of LINE to date. With a very positive first quarter of 2018, it is evident the platform is still growing and company revenue is increasing. With a renewed focus on blockchain, cryptocurrency, loans, and insurance, a lot of exciting ventures are on the horizon for the Asian technology giant. The company’s cryptocurrency exchange is scheduled to go live later this year, pending approval by Japan’s FSA.

IBM and Global Citizen are issuing a challenge to the world’s developers: use blockchain to revolutionize donations to humanitarian causes.

At this moment in time, there are several technical difficulties that cryptocurrencies are facing, thus hindering their road to mass-adoption. These are speed, compliance, excess volatility, and cost. Fluzcoin represents an independent and participative retail coin, which aims to solve all these issues, while also creating an intelligent coin that is ready for being scaled towards mass adoption.  

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

Excess volatility represents one of the main problems that cryptocurrencies face when being used as a day-to-day method of payment, as one never truly knows what their coins are worth.

In order to prevent this issue, Fluzcoin will introduce a self-correcting volatility system (currently awaiting patent approval). The system will use specified rules, alongside with AI-based algorithms to control supply and demand on the market. This will be achieved by having the system remove or add coins to the total supply, alongside other steering mechanisms. Additionally, this system will bring about other benefits as well, as it will allow holders to mine simply by holding the coins, without having to purchase hardware and install software.

In an effort to ensure a bright future, Fluzcoin will not be forever tied to the current technology. Rather, the coin leaves room for improvement, as blockchain tech continues to advance.

When it comes down to its main advantages, Fluzcoin can provide benefits to both merchants and consumers. With this in mind, merchants can take advantage of: no transaction costs; risk free granted its immutability protocol; consumer behavior analytics; convertibility into fiat; clear KYC regulations, and more. On the other hand, consumers can enjoy: possibility for smaller prices for products and services, as accepting Fluzcoin as a means of payment is free; earning a profit by simply holding the coin; appreciating rewards issued via Fluzcoin; non-speculative design, resilience to pump & dump schemes, and more.

Accoding to Stefan Krautwald, Chief Commercial Officer, dozens of merchants have actively approached Fluzcoin to build out a blockchain based means of payment ready for mass adoption.

Currently, the Fluzcoin team is busy preparing the Initial Coin Offering. For more details about Fluzcoin, feel free to access the website, and white paper.

The Chinese government will publish its own analyses of 28 major cryptocurrencies from domestic experts

Telecoms giant Telefonica is partnering to build smartphone security solutions for blockchain-based transactions and messaging apps.