Day: May 29, 2018

In the tangled mess that is the American health care system wrongful or just poor information sharing is a major contributor to patient misdiagnosis, insurance denial and mistakes in billing. Very often problems stem from hospitals, doctors, state agencies and insurance companies using different information systems to send and share patient data.

Decentralized Ledger Used to Streamline Medical Data Sharing

This has made the medical care industry one of the most attractive places for the implementation of a decentralized ledger approach to information management. A blockchain network would allow all parties involved in patient care access to an encrypted body of data where information can be shared and all changes are traceable.

The Massachutes Institute of Technology is currently developing a blockchain system called MedRec that will allow patients to manage their own information by allowing doctors and insurance providers to update or change information only with their permission. As reported in The Wall Stree Journal MIT developers give a scenario where all of the vaccinations a baby receives are recorded on the blockchain so that every doctor who treats it knows it’s vaccination history.

The System Dr. Andrew Lippman, a senior research scientist at MIT and associate director of the MIT Media Lab, concedes is reliant on doctors and providers opting into it. The difference between MedRec and existing companies that are only working at overcoming compatibility problems is that MedRec “is a way for consumers to easily and securely access their records and have control of their own records” Said Dr. Lippman.

One company already using blockchain to enable patient information sharing between the various bodies involved in treatment is Nashville based Change Healthcare. Their network includes 800,000 physicians, 117 dentists and 60,000 pharmacies who share a “single source of truth” according to Emily Vaughn, blockchain product development director at Change Healthcare.

Ms. Vaugn explained that the system reduces opportunities for mistakes that come from the mishandling of patient information and that the system which can process about 50 million transactions daily saves the company money by eliminating the need for records to be reconciled and verified by hand. She added;

“You know at what stage in the life cycle the claim is in, there’s a shared understanding of what the next steps are.”

Blockchain can Potentially Reduce Data Sharing Expenses by 75%

A group of companies has also recognized that using blockchain could help bring together the online directories of health care providers maintained by insurance companies. An estimate reports that it cost 2.1 billion dollars for insurance providers to maintain private directories according to the WSJ. A number that Busy Burr, vice president and head of health-care trend and innovation at Humana, says can be potentially brought down by 75% using blockchain. Ms. Burr says. “We think if we could create a single source of proof for that data, a huge amount of cost could be taken out of the system.”

Image from Shutterstock

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Prosecutors in Germany have made an emergency sale of cryptocurrencies seized in two investigations due to concerns over price volatility.

New figures released by CoinATMradar show that there are now 3,125 Bitcoin ATMs worldwide, with six new installations daily, reports Bitcoinist. Argentina plans to become the world’s biggest player with pre-agreements to install 4,000 ATM around the South American country as part of a new government plan to install 30,000 machines in the future.

Bitcoin’s recent slump hasn’t seemed to have affected the ATM industry with reports that it’s healthier than ever, given that at the beginning of 2017 there were only 1,000 machines worldwide.

Bitcoin ATM startup BCB ATM saw its sales figures soar by 528% in just 11 months through 2017, and other companies are experiencing the same rise in sales in 2018. Rising Bitcoin prices over the past three years have accelerated the installation of machines with cryptocurrencies’ wider adoption around the world.

The United States remains the largest business provider for ATM companies with 1,800 machines across the country, followed by Canada with 477, and then Austria in third place with just 174, as the demand for buying and selling using the machines increases. The US capital recently doubled its ATM availability from 20 to 40 due to public demand.

Machines which allow customers to both buy and sell have increased by 35% as manufacturers have improved hardware. These machines have proved to be profitable for operators as they charge fees for both buying and selling transactions, charging an average fee to the client of 8.77%.

Out of the 31 total hardware manufacturers, the top three include Genesis Coin (34.37%), General Bytes (27.49%), and Lamassu (11.23%) who comprise over 70% of the entire market. Bitcoin is king with 99.9% of all ATMs supporting it, followed in popularity by Litecoin and Ethereum.

ATMs are not the only way of trading on the move as increasing outlets, now numbering in their thousands, give customers a quick trading opportunity. Customers can now purchase their Bitcoins through vouchers, gift cards and web-money kiosks, with Switzerland leading the way with Bitcoin now available as payment at 1,357 railway ticket kiosks around the alpine nation.

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Pro tennis player Gael Monfils is no stranger to success. He won 7 ATP singles titles, competed in several Grand Slam tournaments and is going to play in two more this year. Gael is known for having a colourful personality, both on and off the court and has become quite popular with fans of the sport. Despite his hectic training and playing regime, Gael still manages to trade online, and his platform of choice is eToro.

eToro is the world’s leading social trading network, which has been at the forefront of Fintech for more than ten years. Over the years, eToro has pioneered various innovative features in the world of online trading, such as CopyTrader, which enable traders to allocate funds to copy other traders’ portfolios in real time, and CopyFunds investment strategies, which are ready-made, fully allocated, managed investment portfolios.

Gael first heard about eToro from his brother-in-law and was drawn to its wide selection of cryptocurrencies and innovative CopyFund investment strategies. He has been trading on the platform since October 2017. eToro is one of the only platforms that offers trading of both “traditional” financial instruments, such as stocks and commodities, and cryptocurrencies.

Playing tennis as a professional is not easy. It takes dedication, hard work, raw talent, and the ability to handle adverse circumstances. Being an online trader requires much of the same qualities – which is why the two can go hand in hand.

eToro manages to make trading approachable to a variety of clients, numbering in the millions and in 140 countries. Some of eToro’s main values include leadership, innovation, and fun. Gael Monfils embodies many of these values, which is why this collaboration is quite natural.

Your capital is at risk. This is not investment advice

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A lot of things have changed in the recent times, including the status of cryptocurrencies. The virtual tokens are now considered a valid medium of value exchange. Valid in the sense that it can be used to buy and sell tangible or intangible items. Ethbay knows this very well and is tapping into the e-commerce segment as an online marketplace that uses Ethereum as the preferred currency for buying and selling.

Taking all matters of excessive fee for transactions and listing, security, and lack of loyalty rewards into consideration, Ethbay has set the charges to a minimum by including a mere 1% transaction fee and offers free listings for sellers. Security wise, they have a secured Ethereum smart contract Escrow solution that ensures all transactions are safe and secured. Additionally, Ethbay also has a unique system that does not require personal information on registration. It comes with an encrypted messaging service that is private and anonymous in nature.

So How Does Ethbay Work?

Ethbay is a simple, easy-to-use platform. Once the user registers on the platform, they will be issued an Account ID. Following which, they can access their profile after setting a password for their account.

Being a cryptocurrency driven ecommerce platform, sellers can list their products for two different selling modes – as an auction or for a fixed price. The auctions will have a start and end date and time, while the fixed price listing remains constant unless manually updated by the seller. The seller will be required to include their Ethereum wallet address, on their profile, so that proceeds from sales can be credited to the rightful owner.

For buyers, this will mean sorting through seller listings for items of choice and bid on them. Being an auction, the bids will be competitive and the highest bidder will receive the wallet address to which they will have to send the ETH equivalent of the winning bid amount. Once the transaction is confirmed, the product will be shipped to the bidder. However, when it comes to the fixed price listing, users can just pay with ETH for the product they wish to purchase and get it shipped to wherever they want.

The payments made on the Ethbay platform are first stored in an Escrow account, to be released once both the parties are satisfied with the trade. Any conflict with respect to the trade will be subjected to mediation by the platform’s experts before deciding to release the funds held in escrow.

Though optional, a user may want to add their email address for purposes of notifications on their orders.

Why Ethbay?

The best part of Ethbay includes entitling holders of the EBY token to receive shares of fee generated from the platform. Unlike the ecommerce giants, the decentralized marketplace allows users to conduct transactions without having to divulge their personal/private information like credit card number etc. And the best part is the option to use cryptocurrency (ETH) to purchase goods and services.

The Ethbay platform is powered by its native EBY tokens, which will be soon listed on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges. In addition, Ethbay will also integrate its own onsite exchange within the platform, to accept a wide variety of other cryptocurrencies and tokens which will be exchanged for Ethereum when transferring the funds to the seller.

In the near future, Ethbay will add additional features to its platform such as the ability to buy and sell services as well as classifieds for buying and selling products and services locally, using Ethereum as the base currency.

More information about the Ethbay platform is available at – https://www.ethbay.co/

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The Special Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution under the South Korean National Assembly has come forward with a proposal to allow domestic ICOs once again but with stricter investor protection controls. Calls for government to stop neglecting its duty toward promoting blockchain technology.

National Assembly Presents Government with ICO Proposal

As the second largest crypto trading market globally, regulation changes in South Korea have a market-wide impact. That impact has been felt throughout 2018 since the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) implemented a ban on ICOs along with other restrictive regulations. The nationwide ICO ban has seen entrepreneurs taking their projects overseas to friendlier shores in order to raise funding. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Switzerland have become the popular destinations while South Korea has watched their innovators and the financial gains they create sail away.

Talks of easing off on restrictions led by Governor Yoon Suk-heun have been ongoing since early May. Yesterday the National Assembly announced an official recommendation to lift the ban on domestic ICOs.

As the governing administration has made no moves to create clarity or present any guidelines for a domestic policy on ICOs the National Assembly forwarded a proposal to allow ICOs under legislation that creates conditions of greater investor protection. The proposal is a result of the most recent general meeting of The Special Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution under the National Assembly which convened on May 28.

The Special Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Special Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a state committee aimed at seeking ways to capitalize on changes brought on by the fourth industrial revolution, that is cyber and blockchain related technologies. The committee is made up of 25 members from the private sector and 5 officials from the government and has the mandate to overhaul the industrial sector by combing the countries pre-existing physical systems with emerging cyber technologies to serve as a catalyst for economic growth.

The committee has accused the sitting administration of neglecting its duty to respond to the expansion of blockchain technology by creating legislation that would allow it to flourish while also creating a regulatory framework that would protect investors in the nascent space. It was quoted in Business Korea as saying’

 “We need to form a task force including private experts in order to improve transparency of cryptocurrency trading and establish a healthy trade order. The administration also needs to consider setting up a new committee and building governance systems at its level in a bid to systematically make blockchain policy and efficiently provide industrial support. We will also establish a legal basis for cryptocurrency trading, including permission of ICOs, through the National Assembly Standing Committee.”

The crypto market can now only wait and see if the committee under the National Assembly can accelerate the government’s progress on bringing forth new legislation on domestic ICO projects.

Image from Shutterstock

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Bitcoin is down again and looks set to test another key support level at $6,900, the technical charts indicate.

Key Points

• Bitcoin price remains in a bearish trend and is currently trading around $7,000 against the US Dollar.
• There is a crucial bearish trend line in place with resistance at $7,300 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair must stay above the $7,000 handle to avoid further losses in the near term.

Bitcoin price is under a strong selling pressure below $7,300 against the US Dollar. Let’s see if BTC/USD can hold the $7,000 support level or not.

Bitcoin Price Analysis

There was no major upside recovery above $7,350 in bitcoin price against the US Dollar. The BTC/USD pair corrected higher a few points yesterday, but buyers failed to push the price above the $7,350 and $7,400 resistance levels. As a result, there was a downside reaction and the price broke the last swing low of $7,150. It traded close to the $7,000 level and a low was formed at $7,048.

At the moment, the price is consolidating losses above the $7,000 and it remains at a risk of more losses. An initial hurdle for buyers is near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $7,445 high to $7,048 low. However, the most significant resistance is close to $7,250, which was a support earlier. The stated $7,250 level is also around the 50% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $7,445 high to $7,048 low. Above $7,250, there is a crucial bearish trend line in place with resistance at $7,300 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair.

Looking at the chart, the price is clearly struggling to move higher above $7,250 and $7,300. If buyers continue to struggle, bitcoin could drop sharply and it might break the $7,000 support in the near term.

Looking at the technical indicators:              

Hourly MACD – The MACD for BTC/USD is still in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI is currently moving lower towards the 30 level.

Major Support Level – $7,000

Major Resistance Level – $7,250

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Bitcoin, approaching ten years since its introduction, has been through an interesting period with substantial fluctuations in its value. More recently, there has been a shift in the perception of the role it plays in financial activities in a period that has seen government and established financial institutions utilizing blockchain technology internationally.

Bitcoin was introduced as a creation of an individual or individuals who identified as Satoshi Nakamoto, believed to be a pseudonym. The creator never met in person and only communicated publicly through chat rooms and e-mail.

Nakamoto also generated the very first coins mining them on a computer, shortly before releasing the client for public use. Analytics tracking known IPs and Bitcoin addresses also indicate that approximately BTC 1 million were mined by Nakamoto. Most of these have been idling for years in multiple Bitcoin addresses, with some addresses still receiving anonymous donations to this day.

If assumptions are correct that these belong to Nakamoto exist and will never be released, this means that almost 5% of Bitcoin’s maximum supply will never be in circulation. The potential for this vast sum to destabilize the market should it ever be released has generated a huge amount of interest in discovering the identity and motivations of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Conspiracies and claims

As with any mystery, Bitcoin’s creation has had its fair share of conspiracy theories. Among the most outlandish was a suggestion that aliens introduced blockchain technology. The underlying cryptography has also led some to believe there was CIA involvement, with Bitcoin’s potential for communications utility and funding arrangements for special operations.

Even corporate links have been fingered. Parts of the names of four major corporations – Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi, and Motorola – form the name Satoshi Nakamoto.

Other individuals have been considered as prospects. In March 2014, journalist Leah McGrath Goodman gathered evidence that pointed to a system engineer who had worked on defense projects as Nakamoto. He denied any involvement and Goodman’s news story was roundly criticized for her questionable methodology.

At the end of 2015, investigations by Gizmodo and Wired discovered evidence that an Australian, Craig Wright, and an American, Dave Kleiman (who had died in 2013), could have developed Bitcoin. Wright supported this claim in May 2016 but the evidence was not conclusive.

Others with extensive blockchain knowledge have also been linked. Nick Szabo’s ‘bit gold’ which was created in 1998, has been considered to be the original concept for creating Bitcoin. Szabo has not confirmed any of the speculation.

For now, the identity of the creator remains unknown and 1 million Bitcoins sit untouched.

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Chinese search giant Baidu has turned to blockchain technology in order to make its online encyclopedia more traceable and transparent.

Key Highlights

• Ethereum classic price is under pressure below the $15.00 pivot level against the US dollar.
• There was a break below a key bullish trend line with support at $15.00 on the hourly chart of the ETC/USD pair (Data feed via Kraken).
• The pair is currently trading near $14.15 and it may extend the decline towards the $12.00 level.

Ethereum classic price is in a bearish trend against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. ETC/USD is likely to remain in a downtrend towards $13.00 and $12.00.

Ethereum Classic Price Trend

There was a strong rejection noted around the $15.80 and $16.00 resistances in ETC price against the US dollar. The ETC/USD pair started a downside move and declined below the $15.20 support. It even broke the $15.00 support and settled below the 100 hourly simple moving average. It opened the doors for more declines since there was a close below $15.00.

More importantly, there was a break below a key bullish trend line with support at $15.00 on the hourly chart of the ETC/USD pair. The pair traded further lower towards the $14.00 level. A low was formed at $14.17 and it seems like the current decline is not over yet. On the upside, an initial resistance for ETC is near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $15.53 high to $14.17 low. However, the most important barrier for buyers is close to $15.00 and the 100 hourly SMA.

The chart suggests that the price may find sellers on the upside near $14.80 and $15.00. On the downside, a break below the recent low of $14.17 may open the doors for a push below the $14.00 level. The next supports on the downside are at $13.00 and $12.00.

Hourly MACD – The MACD for ETC/USD is currently in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETC/USD is moving lower and is currently well below the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $14.00

Major Resistance Level – $15.00

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