Day: May 18, 2018

Bitcoin’s drop to one-month lows has bolstered the already bearish technical setup.

The initial coin offering industry is plagued by scams, shady projects, and a lot of miscommunication. In the case of the Envion ICO, the founders are suing Matthias Woestmann and his corporation for breaching contractual obligations. This legal action against the shareholders of Envion AG, registered in Switzerland, doesn’t bode all that well for this particular project.

What is Going on With Envion?

As we have seen with the Tezos ICO, a discrepancy between initial promises and the end result often leads to legal action. While the Tezos team was capable of resolving such concerns amicably after a few tough months, it remains to be seen if the Envion ICO will have a similar outcome. So far, it isn’t looking all that promising, especially with the legal action being taken as of right now.

To put all of this into perspective, the Envion ICO successfully raised $100 million from investors all over the world. Although the project has a lot of merit, it seems the project’s founding team isn’t too happy with the shareholders of Envion AG. Quadrat Capital GmbH, a company managed by Matthias Woestmann, is of particular interest. It appears Woestmann has unlawfully secured the majority stake in Envion AG by breaching contractual obligations.

Envion AG is a blockchain startup which produces cryptocurrency mining units powered by renewable energy. It is a very promising venture, as the electricity waste associated with cryptocurrency mining has been a controversial topic for some time now. With the ICO having completed successfully, the plan was to create mobile blockchain data centers. Said units would have been installed at power plants to take care of the renewable energy aspect. Unfortunately, those plans have been put on hold due to the legal action being taken.

The original plan involved Matthias Woestmann being a liaison between the project and investors and advisors from his network of contacts. That never materialized, as Woestmann allegedly turned out to be more of a liability than anything else. He even wrested control of Envion AG in the process, without ever attempting to make good on the original business plan. It’s a very troublesome development if true, and one which triggered the legal action being taken.

After a fair few developments, the current situation shapes up as follows. The original founders only have a 33% ownership of Envion AG, whereas Woestmann is in control of the other shares. He also did not restore ownership to the founders as previously agreed upon, but rather issued the shares to a company controlled by his alleged codefendant. All of this makes Envion look rather suspicious, and it shows how one individual can tarnish the reputation of an entire company in fairly short order.

The bigger question is where things will go from here. Despite successfully raising $100 million, it seems the Envion project will not move ahead until all of these issues are resolved. It is impossible to tell how long that process will take exactly, although legal action usually takes anywhere from a few months to years. In any case, situations like these need to be taken with a grain of salt, as there are always two sides to a story.

Over the past 20 years, some of the most consistently successful IT companies are those that have provided enterprise information management solutions to medium to large sized companies. This market demographic usually don’t have the development budget of giant corporations like Google or major retail banks, but are able to spend decent budget on licensing and customising software like Oracle, SAP, or Salesforce. These three companies combined have an annual revenue of $70 billion, which doesn’t account for their many smaller competitors and the enterprise solutions offered by Microsoft and Google. eCommerce in a wider sense is projected to be worth $4.5 trillion by 2021.

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ERP has been around since the early 90’s, and enterprise platforms have had to integrate each new tech trend as it develops: first web communication, then social media, and more recently Big Data analytics. With the interest in what ledger technology can do for business increasing, the stage is set for enterprise IT to adopt blockchain solutions en masse.

However, there are many ways that ledger technology is less easily-integrated into existing platforms as was the case with other tech developments like analytics for example. Blockchains work in a new paradigm where data is collectively created and owned, making blockchain app development a slower process involving more stakeholders and complexity. Worse still, most business-oriented blockchain platforms like Ethereum or Enigma are still in a nascent state and lack a broad range of solutions.

A soon-to-launch blockchain platform built on Hyperledger Fabric called Omnitude is aiming to address this growing need with their platform that acts as a middle-layer between businesses and the blockchain. This allows for rapid ledger app development and a lower development overhead for companies interested in leveraging the coming wave of blockchain solutions.

The current bottleneck of blockchain development

The supply of blockchain solutions for all types of users is currently far behind demand. This is evidenced by the extremely long queue of companies looking for blockchain developers, as well as the popularity of ICOs addressing these corporate needs.

At the moment, the offerings available to the average medium to large sized private company are extremely limited. Many blockchain platforms are 2 years away from launch, and the technology is too complex to build extensive DApps on the likes of Ethereum.

Bridges between blockchains and enterprise

Omnitude have targeted this market with a solution that allows companies to easily interface through blockchains using an Omnitude ID (OID) reference, which helps alleviate fraud, information asymmetries, and privacy issues among other requirements. By providing companies an identifier, the Omnitude platform essentially abstracts away much of the need for private blockchain development. This has wide ranging application in eCommerce, ERP, and Customer Management, and could potentially drastically reduce costs and time-to-launch.

The Omnitude platform has already released details of 2 major partnerships, and their roadmap rollout has been going to schedule. The company is ramping up towards accelerated development on the back of its Token Sale which runs until the 31st of May.

Kazakhstan’s president calls for development of “common rules” for crypto regulation globally

Even though most cryptocurrencies are suffering from another round of bearish pressure, there is always at least one exception to take note of. Binance Coin is surging in value once again, although it is a bit unexpected. The world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange is certainly making a lot of positive headlines, which directly affects the Binance Coin price, by the look of things.

Binance Coin Price is Taking Off

It is remarkable how the Binance Coin price is popping off in spectacular fashion. Although the year 2018 has been pretty positive for BNB already, it seems the trend is still strong at this point. Considering how all other major cryptocurrencies are suffering from small to medium-sized losses, this trend by BNB is all the more interesting to take note of.

More specifically, the Binance Coin price has risen by another 17.79% in the past 24 hours. That is a more than respectable gain, especially given all of the negative pressure across most cryptocurrency markets right now. Something will have to change in this regard, but for now, BNB holders will be quite happy with how things are going, for rather obvious reasons.

This increase pushes the Binance Coin price all the way to $14.61. Although it’s all-time high was just below $24, this is a rather solid trend for an alternative cryptocurrency at this point in time. BNB also notes solid gains over Bitcoin (20.64%) and Ethereum (21.5%) which means there may be further positive momentum on the horizon. Even so, people will get greedy and take profits at some point.

With $104.62m in 24-hour trading volume, the demand for Binance Coin isn’t necessarily higher than it has been in the past. There is a real chance people are diversifying their BTC and ETH holding snow that the market is going through yet another rough patch. Additionally, the ongoing growth and expansion of Binance will spark even more interest in BNB and push the Binance Coin price even higher.

With Binance representing every trading platform for BNB, it is not hard to guess where the volume is coming from. The BTC, USDT, and ETH markets are all extremely popular right now, albeit the latter one in far less spectacular fashion. There doesn’t appear to be any fiat currency pair for BNB at this stage, albeit its exposure to USDT should be sufficient to keep the current Binance Coin price momentum going.

Whether or not the Binance Coin price will continue to rise is a different matter altogether. This sudden 17.8% spike is pretty surprising, although it is not entirely strange given all of the developments affecting Binance as a company. It will be interesting to see if this currency can put a positive spin on other the entire cryptocurrency markets, as all other coins need a lift before things become really dire.

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There is an elephant in the room and that room is the current ICO market. The elephant is the unignorable fact that the majority of ICOs offer no protection to their token buyers who consider themselves as investors. These buyers are not investors. Here’s why.

In 2017, initial coin offerings, or ICOs, emerged into the big time. Over the course of the year, startups conducting an ICO as a way of raising startup capital raised over $6.5 billion. Since then, many ICOs have issued utility tokens under the guise of security tokens, and they have raised millions of dollars by promising their holders huge returns and part of their income. In reality, they may not able to deliver on these promises.

The difference between a utility token and a security token was explained by Laimonas Noreika, the CEO of DESICO, the world’s first fully legal security token platform: “if Google were to have launched an ICO to raise capital by selling utility tokens, then Google utility token holders would now receive free Google ads in exchange for their tokens. Were Google to have issued security tokens, then Google security token holders would now be eligible to revenue share of the company.”

A security token is an investment and a financial product. It is a token that gives its holder ownership of a real asset, which can range from tokenized commodities and tokenized real estate, to tokenized funds. Meanwhile, a utility token simply provides access to a platform or product, and unlike a security token, it is not an investment and does not provide its holder with any rights.

Due to the different characteristics of security tokens and utility tokens, plus the lack of legal regulation, this has led to the ICO industry being shrouded in mystery. In mid-2017, this perception surrounding the credibility of ICOs led to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, cracking down on security ICOs and making them “subject to the requirements of the federal securities law.”

“The ICO industry is in desperate need for the correct legal frameworks and infrastructure to issue security tokens,” Noreika continued. “This is because finance experts predict that 2018 will be the year when security tokens begin to outstrip utility tokens, since more capital is expected to flow into the security crypto asset class. By the first quarter of 2019, it is estimated that ICOs issuing security tokens will outnumber those issuing utility tokens.”

Empowered by the belief that security tokens are the future of a global tokenized economy, the DESICO team will introduce the world’s first fully legally compliant, and therefore game-changing, infrastructure to issue and trade security tokens.

DESICO’s full legal compliance is rooted in its country of operation. DESICO has chosen to operate from Lithuania, a Eurozone member and European Union member state. Lithuania holds a significant legal advantage due to its crowdfunding law, which makes it one of the few countries in the world, and the only EU country, to fully legally regulate ICOs. According to a recent report by Tokendata, Lithuania ranks third in the world behind the only the United States and China in terms of capital raised through ICOs in 2018. Furthermore, 2018 has seen startups from Lithuania successfully raise $249 million so far.

DESICO is a concrete example of Lithuania’s open attitude towards globally-operating blockchain companies. It has received support from the government backed business development agency, Enterprise Lithuania, as well as the country’s Ministry of Finance, with finance minister, Mr. Vilius Šapoka, praising DESICO for its encouragement in developing “Lithuania’s fintech and blockchain communities by promoting the settlement of global blockchain and fintech businesses in Lithuania.”

With its infrastructure to issue, buy, and sell security tokens in full compliance with the law, its internationally-experienced team of advisors and employees, plus its backing from the government of an EU member state, DESICO will not just eliminate the elephant in the room of ICOs. It will set new standards for the global ICO industry. Welcome to DESICO. Welcome to the world of security tokens.

More information about DESICO is available on its website, and make sure you sign up to its Telegram channel for the latest updates and discussions. DESICO will also shortly carry out an exclusive airdrop for its community members.

The post What Needs to Be Done With the Elephant in the ICO Room? appeared first on NewsBTC.

The parent company of hacked Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck, has revealed the company’s plans to expand to U.S. markets

The sustainability of Bitcoin mining has always been a topic of debate. Some sources claim it is just fine, whereas others deem is not viable for much longer. Alex De Vries conducted an interesting piece of research, which claims the energy usage by Bitcoin miners will double by late 2018.  An interesting study, although one that also misses out on key elements.

The Alex De Vries Study

Looking at how Bitcoin mining evolved, it is normal the energy usage has been on the rise. More people are excited about mining cryptocurrencies. At the same time, the efficiency of mining units has improved vastly. As such, one would expect the energy usage to remain somewhat stable. Alex De Vries claims that will be anything but the case. In his findings, BTC mining will use as much energy as the entire country of The Netherlands.

His research also claims how this energy consumption will continue to rise. It may even reach 5% of the world’s energy. On paper, this sounds very problematic, although there are always two sides to a story. There are some key factors which contribute to making Bitcoin mining profitable. The first of all is having access to electricity that is affordable and cheap. For Bitcoin mining purposes, the number of locations is fairly limited in this regard.

Canada, Iceland, and some regions of the US are places that come to mind in this regard. China also has some “cheaper” electricity rates, but the country is trying to move mining firms out of the region. This factor is seemingly not taken into account by Alex De Vries. Bitcoin mining has become something for corporations rather than individual miners. These companies are also looking to keep their electricity usage in check first and foremost.

The Rise of Renewable Energy

Another factor Alex De Vries overlooked is the use of renewable energy. All regions mentioned above have a high degree of renewable energy sources. Bitcoin mining operations are tapping into those solutions rather than the traditional power grid. One could even argue the focus on renewable energy makes the entire study by Alex De Vries a trivial issue.

No one denies the Bitcoin mining industry will continue to require more electricity. With the mining difficulty rising, more hardware is needed or new units will need to be developed which are even better at this process while keeping the energy consumption low. It is unclear if more robust units can be expected in this regard. Even so, existing hardware combined with renewable energy sources will not affect the world’s energy consumption all that much.

There are bigger threats to our environment than Bitcoin mining. It is a slight concern, but most of these studies tend to overlook all of the necessary information. Alex De Vries highlights some interesting aspects, but they are based on partial information and a few assumptions. This research will have no real impact on the popularity of Bitcoin or mining whatsoever.

The post Study Claims Bitcoin Mining is Hurting the Environment, Flawed Argument appeared first on NewsBTC.