Day: May 25, 2018

Crypto markets see positive growth today after a week of slumps

Bangkok Bank has joined the Marco Polo trade finance initiative developed by blockchain startup R3 and trade finance technology firm TradeIX.

Blockchain has become somewhat of a buzzword in the financial sector. Many people have high expectations for this revolutionary technology. However, some critics claim the financial sector needs decentralization, rather than more proprietary solutions. There are some reasons as to why this latter approach may be preferable.

Is Blockchain Over-hyped?

According to a recent piece on InvestorPlace, the blockchain bubble is very real. There are still a few worthwhile projects in development which can offer a broad range of applications. However, the number of blockchain “stocks” has increased exponentially. A change that was to be expected ever since everyone started using the word to describe their company.

As such, the blockchain hype has become over-saturated. Very few actual use cases require blockchain technology. Instead, most of them require the principles presented by this technology. Mainly decentralization is a welcome change of pace in any industry. Blockchain itself may not necessarily be a big part of the future of society. Decentralization and cutting out the intermediaries, on the other hand, offers a lot more exciting use cases.

With the blockchain stocks plummeting rather quickly the next phase is almost upon us. During this transition, more and more companies are likely to steer away from proprietary blockchain technology. One exception is the banks, as they continue to file and win patents regarding distributed ledgers. Bank of America recently secured another such patent for a proprietary blockchain-based venture.

The Era of Financial Decentralization

If there is one thing Bitcoin has shown the world, it is how decentralized finance can work. Although converting to and from fiat currencies still mainly requires centralized platforms, that too is coming to change. Slowly but surely, decentralized exchanges are slowly gaining traction. This will affect the cryptocurrency industry but also spill over to the rest of finance.

With decentralized solutions, a lot of the current issues will be resolved. High fees will become a thing of the past. Foreign exchange rates can be all but eliminated in the process. More importantly, there is no need to ask permission from a bank or clearinghouse to move one’s own money around. All of this sounds link some kind of banking utopia, but it is not unfeasible by any means.

Since blockchain is built on the concept of decentralization, it is evident this change will come sooner rather than later. Blockchain is just a medium to convey these principles to the masses. It is not the only way of achieving this goal either. The future is looking bright, but it may not necessarily include blockchain technology in any capacity. So far, that doesn’t seem to be a bad thing. That is, unless one heavily invested in blockchain stocks during the recent bubble.

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The post The World Needs Fewer Blockchain Ideas and More Decentralization appeared first on NewsBTC.

It is evident the cryptocurrency market recovery process is still in full effect as we speak. Whether or not this will lead to any major changes, remains to be seen. More specifically, things look somewhat promising now, but things can turn around fairly quickly these days. For now, the Ethereum price seems to be on the right track, as $600 is well within reach.

Can the Ethereum Price Reach $600?

After yesterday’s cryptocurrency market onslaught, any bets are off the table as of right now. Over the past week, it appeared as if the Ethereum price would successfully surpass $750, but that momentum quickly turned against the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Instead of reaching $750, the value quickly began to drop to $700 or lower.

In the past few days, the Ethereum price took another solid beating, just like all other cryptocurrencies. As such, the Ethereum price dropped to $650, then to $600, and even went a slow as $560. A worrisome trend for novice users, albeit it is not something veteran traders haven’t seen in the past. For the time being, it remains unclear what the bottom is for Ether as this trend looms overhead, albeit things have begun looking up again over the past 24 hours.

To put this into perspective, the Ethereum price surpassed $600 in the past few hours. Unfortunately, the momentum wasn’t sufficient to keep this level stable, as the price dropped below $600 again. Even so, there is a 5.02% increase over the past 24 hours, which is more than people had expected to see around this time yesterday. That doesn’t mean cryptocurrencies are out of the proverbial woods just yet.

With $2.425bn in 24-hour trading volume, it seems as if people were simply waiting for this dip prior to getting interested in cryptocurrencies once again.  Whether or not we will see some interesting developments over the weekend, is a different matter altogether. Weekends are usually quite troublesome for cryptocurrency trading, albeit these next two days will be a bit different, by the look of things.

The way things look right now, it seems Bitfinex is the biggest exchange in terms of Ether trading volume. Its lead over OKEx isn’t that big, though, and Huobi is in third place. Binance has two pairs in the top five as well, as its USDT and BTC pairs are generating a decent amount of volume as well With just one fiat currency pair in the top five, the current situation isn’t overly impressive, but it is still better compared to yesterday.

For the time being, it remains a bit unclear which way the Ethereum price will head in. The overall volatility is still palpable, and it seems there may be some intriguing price changes over the next few hours.  Even so, the first order of business is determining whether or not the Ethereum price can effectively reach $600 and stay above that value for more than a few hours or days.

At the Blockchain Week recently held in New York, it emerged that two quite distinct differences exist between the Asian crypto market and the West.

In the US, initial coin offerings are about ideas rather than returns and vice versa when it comes to Asia, according to Coindesk interviews conducted at the conference. Asian investors want returns more quickly than US investors, who are in for the long haul, better invested in terms of financial knowledge than quick gains.

“At the very beginning, the information coming from Asia to the US was very limited. We didn’t know what’s really going on,” said Zhuling Chen, co-founder of Aelf, a Singapore startup.

With no real reference point, this resulted in the market evolving in Asia as a separate entity, not part of a Bitcoin or Ethereum ecosystem, but certainly informed by them, followed by Asian banks joining the fray in early 2016.

“Asians love to gamble,” commented Jason Fang from Sora Ventures at the Token Summit 111, one of the Blockchain Week events. Fan added that unlike Western projects, they don’t want to see long lock-up periods, but want their tokens out and realize quick returns.

Fang suggested that Asian investors have one eye on the market, knowing there will always be quick value increase after a coin is released, happy to let them go having made the quick return.”We’re money in, money out in crypto,” he said.

Ricky Li, co-founder of blockchain company Altonomy, told Coindesk that Asians rarely diversify their portfolios over time, again after that quick return:

“US and Europe ICO project teams are more well-invested in terms of financial knowledge… Chinese companies and their neighbors will raise funds in ether and largely maintain those positions, sometimes failing to lock in gain or riding volatility through their whole portfolio.”

“The general view is that a lot of American companies are pushing the boundaries of technological advancement,” Chen said. “In China, it’s slightly more balanced. More companies are looking from a business point of view.”

Nick Tomaino, of VC firm 1confirmation, thought that Asia was arguably the most important part of the world in terms of cryptocurrency, and that the Asian market does mirror Western protocols. He felt, however, that there was a willingness to find common ground between US and Asian companies within the space.

Asian markets very much follow a common theme that is recognizable to all Chinese, that of family, or in terms of business, community, and localization:

“The best way is to have your own project that’s local,” Li concurred. “That’s very appealing to investors in China culturally.”

This, of course, has been affected by the Chinese ICO ban which is now driving companies to towards global business ventures, although this is seen as somewhat of a double-edged sword, giving benefits which weren’t considered before, due to the localized nature of Chinese business.

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The post “Show Me The Money”, Say Asian Crypto Investors appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Ellen Degeneres, who once compared Bitcoin to a digital goat that only exists on the internet, has received a $4 mln XRP donation for her wildlife charity from Ashton Kutcher

Transport firm Maersk has begun commercially using Insurwave, a blockchain platform based on Microsoft Azure’s distributed ledger tech

Tencent is working with a local tax authority on fintech solutions to tax issues, and already has a blockchain product for invoicing.

CNBC Africa Host Ran Neu-Ner has taken a position gaining a lot of acceptance recently that bringing clear regulation into the cryptocurrency marketplace at this time is a positive move for both entrepreneurs and investors.

Regulation Will Open the Flood Gates

Neu-Ner who hosts the CNBC Africa Crypto Trader appeared on the networks popular investment show Fast Money where he encouraged regulatory action saying; “When [regulators] come out with regulation, it’s going to open the floodgates for new money to come into crypto,”

Neu-Ner who was an early investor in Bitcoin and the founder of OnChain Capital may have been reacting to recent operations by US regulatory and law enforcement agencies targeting fraud in the cryptocurrency and initial coin offering (ICO) marketplaces.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) launched an investigation earlier this week into the possible manipulation of the price of Bitcoin and the overall digital asset market. Last week The North American Securities Administrators Association’s (NASAA) commenced Operation Crypto-Sweep which resulted in 70 investigations and 35 enforcement acts throughout North America.

These operations followed the fake ICO launch created by the Securities Exchange Commision called HoweyCoin which promised a guaranteed return and was endorsed by fake celebrities all of which the SEC informed would be investors are red flag indicators of a scam ICO on the linked .gov page.

Clarify the Playing Field

Speaking about these and other regulatory measures that have become more commonplace recently Neu-Ner said “I hope that they can catch the people [conducting fraudulent activities], because we have to weed out the bad actors,” he added on Fast Money;

“If we have bad actors, it’s going to create a lack of trust in this asset class, we want to make this a real asset class, with real people, then let’s weed out the bad actors. But the first step is, let’s legislate first; let’s regulate first. So we know what the playing field looks like.”

Brian Kelly another Fast Money regular and founder and CEO of BKCM agrees with Neu-Ner acknowledging that clarity in regulatory guidelines and a manipulation free market are two of the guidelines set by the SEC for physically backed exchange-traded funds (ETF).

In reaction to the DoJ’s investigation Kelly, a notorious Bitcoin bull, said the probe isn’t a bad thing and that “They’ll be able to clean [cryptocurrency exchanges] up a little bit,”

Neu-Ner has been on record saying that the SEC needs to establish clear regulations for ICOs if the US wants to continue to hold a leading place in the future of  cryptocurrency development and blockchain innovation.

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The post Analysts Call Crypto Crackdown a Good Thing for the Industry appeared first on NewsBTC.

Recent reports from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) show that USD 1.2 billion in cryptocurrencies has been stolen since the beginning of 2017. Less than 20% of the stolen funds have been recovered.

Bitcoin received a massive influx of popularity in 2017 due to price increases up to USD 20,000, which has brought attention to this sector. Over 1,500 alternative cryptocurrencies have emerged as well, with some of the biggest thefts coming from altcoins.

“One problem that we’re seeing in addition to the criminal activity like drug trafficking and money laundering using cryptocurrencies is the theft of these tokens by bad guys,” Dave Jevans, CEO of cryptocurrency security firm CipherTrace, told Reuters in an interview.

Ethereum alone has seen millions lost in hacks. The Ether stolen from the DAO hack would now be worth USD 2 billion but was an event in 2016. Even so, the Ethereum community went through many hardships in 2017 due to Parity hacks.

Also Read: New EU Privacy Laws Brings Parity’s PICOPs to a Halt

Despite the massive losses, Bitcoin has taken quite a beating as well. Last year saw Nicehash being hacked and many users are still experiencing the aftermath of Bitfinex and Mt Gox.

But NEM takes the cake with the Coincheck hack earlier this year, which saw USD 500 million worth of the tokens being stolen from a Japanese exchange.

The EU’s new GDPR will make it harder for Bitcoin companies to function in the future, and will also enable further thefts and hackings in the future Jevans said.

“GDPR will negatively impact the overall security of the internet and will also inadvertently aid cybercriminals,” said Mr Jevans. “By restricting access to critical information, the new law will significantly hinder investigations into cybercrime, cryptocurrency theft, phishing, ransomware, malware, fraud and crypto-jacking,” he added.

The chairman for APWG predicts more cybercriminals will move to Europe and exploit GDPR. Many cryptocurrency projects are based in Europe, due to the United States’ strict and sometimes ambiguous regulations regarding crypto. This makes them easy targets for hackers, due to proximity to servers.

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The post Over $1 Billion in Crypto Stolen Since 2017 appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

If bitcoin closes the week below the 50-week moving average it will increase the likelihood of a sell-off to $6,000

Bitcoin Gold has been an interesting social experiment. This hard fork of Bitcoin had some high ambitions at first. Several months down the line, it seems things look a lot worse for wear. With one individual controlling most of the network, the ecosystem is facing a serious threat. Solving this matter has proven to be rather difficult.

The Bitcoin Gold Network Issues

In the world of cryptocurrency, several key issues can affect any network. The so-called 51% attack is perhaps one of the worst scenarios for developers to deal with. It effectively means someone controls the majority of the blockchain’s processing power. As such, transactions, payments, and day-to-day operations are all severely affected.

In the case of Bitcoin Gold, the person controlling the network has nefarious intentions. Being able to tamper with transactions can cause all sorts of problems. This is especially true for mining pools, exchanges, and wallet providers dealing with Bitcoin Gold. So far, it remains unclear how much damage has been done in the process.

The end result is how all BTG users are at risk during this time. Any transaction broadcast over the network can be tampered with. In the worst case, the transfer will not even be accepted by the network. This would immediately make it impossible to sue Bitcoin Gold, potentially crashing the price in the process. Whether or not that is the objective of the assailant(s), remains unclear at this time.

Not The First Major Problem

Although this recent issue is of grave concern, it is not the only one. Ever since the release of BTG, there have been numerous concerns and technical issues. Double-spending attacks go back almost a full week, and things are not looking up. In the past, there have been issues with the mining difficult adjustments as well. Despite hard forking Bitcoin, BTG has not inherited the robustness of Bitcoin in this regard.

For the time being, exchanges need to be very careful. Any platform accepting Bitcoin Gold deposits without additional verification will be targeted by these criminals in the coming days. Ensuring all deposits are accounted for and legitimate is the only course of action. Unfortunately, it may also lead to trading platform suspending BTG trading until further notice.

It is not the first time smaller cryptocurrencies are affected by such attacks. Verge has been dealing with multiple attacks in recent months. Monacoin and Electroneum have seen their fair share of issues as well. Bitcoin and Ethereum are unlikely to suffer from issues like these anytime soon. Their networks have a lot more mining support, making it nearly impossible for one entity to control the majority of processing power.

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The post Bitcoin Gold Network Still Suffering Over a Week After Attack appeared first on NewsBTC.