Day: June 5, 2018

Denmark joins EU blockchain partnership, plans to implement the technology in shipping

DHL and TradeIX announce a partnership for blockchain trade financing at the Money20/20 conference in Amsterdam today

China Mobile, one of China’s three state-owned telecoms giants, is exploring moving part of its mobile data business to a distributed ledger.

One of the most advancing and embracing countries of cryptocurrencies, Japan displays the best and worst in the industry and may offer a glimpse into future trends.

Two Argentinian non-profit organizations, Bitcoin Argentina and Bitcoin Americana, are touring rural Argentina spreading knowledge about Bitcoin among local communities, Cointelegraph reports.

Local news outlet Infobae has reported that they’ve decided to coin the name “Bitcoineta” for the project by blending together Bitcoin with ‘camioneta’, the Spanish word for van, their mode of travel for their huge road trip which will take them across the nation.

The Bitmobile has been rigged out for the long road trip, complete with a movie projector, in which the team hopes to reach each village and town in the country across Argentina’s 1 million square miles, disseminating Bitcoin and showing education films about cryptocurrency along the way. Founder of the project, Gabriel Kurman says that he wants to show people how to “take advantage” of cryptocurrencies.

The van set out from Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires on 1 June, reaching the town of Chasomus, with a population of 30,000, some 120 kilometers away, to give a short lecture on blockchain and cryptocurrencies for the locals. Once leaving Buenos Aires province Bitcoineta will visit the regions of La Pampa, Santa Fe, and Cordoba. The team has said that it plans to extend their educational road trip to other parts of Latin America sometime in the future.

The visibility and profile of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in Argentina are on the rise. It plans to become the world’s biggest player with pre-agreements to install 4,000 Bitcoin ATMs around the country as part of a new government plan to install 30,000 machines in the future. The South American country is currently home to more than 10 cryptocurrency exchanges. In May, one of the country’s banks, Banco Masventas, announced it would enable clients to use Bitcoin for international payments.

Bitcoin has been greeted in Argentina with enthusiasm partly because countries with histories of inflation and devaluation of their currencies see the digital currency as one that can conserve the value of user investments and savings. After President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s tightening of currency controls debased the Argentine peso (ARS) in 2012, Bitcoin has gained increasing popularity.

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Binance has created a one billion dollar investment fund to support companies they see as beneficial to the future of the developing crypto technology in hopes of cleaning out the schemes and scams using ICO’s and cryptocurrency.

Cleaning up the Crypto Space

Ella Zhang, a graduate of the Stanford School of Business and former investment director at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Beyers who joined Binance just two months ago, told Bloomberg News  “We’d like the bubble to break,” when speaking about the goals of the venture incubator Binance Labs she was hired to lead. She went on to add,

“We still see a lot of hype in the market, valuations are high and unreasonable. We really think if the bubble bursts, it’s a good thing for the industry.”

While she concedes that the bull market was good for bringing attention and users into the space she also believes that good projects will survive the bubble bursting. Binance, which was founded in Hong Kong but has relocated to Malta due to regulatory crackdowns on virtual currency, benefited greatly from the 2017 bull market emerging as one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms by volume.

Binance Labs’ seven-person team has been mandated with finding projects to invest between $1 and $10 million into. Companies it will consider will have to be focused on solving problems in blockchain technology. This money comes with conditions though as any project that accepts money from the fund will have to join their Crypto Governing Initiative.

CGI Will Hold Funds to White Paper Promises

The fund has developed the CGI to combat scams related to cryptocurrency and ICO’s. Zhang described the purpose of the initiative saying  “The main purpose of this is to fight scams and shitcoins, and to boost crypto and blockchain technology,”

CGI Binance will encourage projects to actually build what they have pledged in their white papers and fund managers will have to vow not to participate in pump and dumps schemes. Any team that fails to uphold their commitments will have their tokens delisted from the exchange and investment pulled.

Binance Labs has chosen 20 cryptocurrency funds to partner with. It has made four investments so far in the company’s tokens and equity though some venture capitalists find conflict in doing so. Zhang said;

“If we see founders contribute to both sides, we’ll hold both sides, sometimes it’s hard to see which one is more valuable, but our position is to support the founders and create value for the project as a whole.”

Image from Shutterstock

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Bitcoin’s retreat from Sunday’s high of $7,779 has poured cold water over the bull mood generated by the weekend’s positive price action.

In May 2018, Australian physicist Gavin Brennen shared his team’s research into how quantum computing would affect blockchain. Jeffrey Tucker reported: “He began with his frustration over the headlines that swept the tech world last October and November. They were as alarmist as they were misleading.”

Scaremongering around how quantum computers will disrupt the security of blockchain technology is often exaggerated and not balanced with the possible solutions or counterplays to defend against the underdeveloped hardware left out.

Future iterations of quantum computers have the potential to reach speeds which are far greater than conventional computers, performing the calculations that blockchain is built on at a much faster rate. Quantum computers would use less energy and pose the threat of hijacking mining operations, redirecting currency and centralizing the network. With a powerful enough quantum computer, you would be able to crack the private key associated with a given public key, undermining the security of the blockchain.

Brennen and his team explored scenarios and made estimates of timeframes in which the technology would sufficiently develop to achieve this. Their research goes onto explain how current application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) hardware is performing proof of work (PoW) computations at hash rates of 14TH/s, which is one thousand times faster than the current gate speeds for quantum architectures which run at 66.7MHz (equates to 13.8GH/s). At the current difficulty level, this gives quantum computers no advantage. Future advancements in the development of quantum technology could see gate speeds of up to 100GHz. Quantum computers would then surpass current technology in its ability to solve the PoW algorithm.

Quantum computers’ future development

The development of hardware achieving these speeds, given the current progression is predicted to fall at the end of the decade, by which time advancements will have been made in ASICs similarly. Many large companies are well underway with research into quantum computing so in the next ten years technology may grow and develop around it. IBM has been making progress with its own quantum processor, with Intel getting closer to that reality as well. Scientists have been delving into silicon-laced diamonds and basic silicon as a means of manufacturing quantum architecture. Both Google and Microsoft are looking to develop cloud-based solutions and new coding languages for the technology. With a widespread availability of the technology and blockchain developing alongside the growth of this technology, it is unlikely for it to have such a detrimental impact.

Gavin also detailed several post-quantum signature schemes that help defend against quantum attacks, with at least four classes of known fixes, all of which are achievable by programmers today. A ten-year head start is ample time to improve on and further develop them into a protocol.

Image Source: Flickr: Steve Jurvetson – A Wafer of the Latest D-Wave Quantum Computers

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The possibility of market manipulation within the cryptocurrency market is a constant concern for investors. While the intention is not clear, it has been found that 10 addresses are holding 496,735,539 EOS tokens, which are worth $5.86 billion and represent 49.67% of the existing one billion EOS tokens.

10 Addresses Hold Nearly Half of All EOS Tokens

EOS has just under 900 million tokens in circulation as the remaining 100 million are held by Block.one, the company behind the initial coin offering. The other nine top ten holder addresses hold just over 400 million tokens. One address holds 75 million, which seems to be linked to another one holding close to 20.6 million (also in the top 10), and one with 13 million. These three addresses together hold approximately $1.5 billion worth of tokens.

The cryptocurrency exchanges trading the most EOS volumes, including Bithumb, OKEx, Huobi, Upbit, Bitfinex, and Binance, may be some of the top holders of the altcoin. The top 75 holders have at least $10 million worth of the token, which is 646,595 tokens. There is a total of 163,930 addresses holding any token.

As EOS has just launched, the top holders of the token have greater power over the decisions through EOS consensus, given it is decided by token holders’ votes. Large block producers, such as Bitfinex with approximately 10%, hold a significant amount of tokens and can be decisive in a shareholders’ vote.

A power play could be happening already. EOS New York seems to be a front for Block.one and is calling out EOS Force, a potential competitor, for being part of a scheme designed by BCH investors. EOS Force, on the other hand, is making public announcements of which they have no authority over. The entity said it will start the global public test of the main net on June 3, but much testing and voting remain to be done first.

The disproportionate amount of voting power the top ten holders have can be demotivating for investors and users even if the top ten holders were to not abuse their 50% share. From the 169,930 addresses holding tokens, many of which certainly belonging to the same individual or entity, only a few have the ability to make decisions and organize their interests, naturally against the interests of others. Accountability is not, in any way, the name of the game.

In the meantime, Block.one is launching its $11.8 billion code with no official launch date. It is also unclear if the EOS is able to launch successfully with such unorthodox modus operandi. At the time of writing EOS was falling with the rest of the altcoins, shedding over 6% on the day down to just over $13.

Image from Shutterstock

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A city-level court in Russia has revoked a ban issued in 2016 that blocked cryptocurrency media site bitcoininfo.ru, among others.

The Russian village of Kolionovo 80 miles outside the capital of Moscow has embraced its own local cryptocurrency called the Kolion. It is now the primary form of currency in the village, for the most part replacing the Russian Ruble (RUB).

Mikhail Shlyapnikov, self proclaimed ‘agro-anarchist’, was motivated to create his own currency after trying to get a loan from banks to develop his plant nursery and being offered 12% interest. He says he didn’t want to suffocate and be a slave to banks.

He began issuing paper Kolions in 2014 but was forced to stop by a court order in 2015. He then released a cryptocurrency version of Kolion in April 2017 using the WAVES platform. The initial coin offering raised 401 Bitcoins, worth USD 510,000 at the time but now worth nearly USD 300,000.

The Kolion has a fixed supply of 1 million coins and cannot be mined, protecting it from inflation. Residents of Kolionovo have largely chosen the Kolion over the RUB since RUB has been experiencing such dramatic inflation due to out of control money printing, losing over half of its value the last few years. Since the Kolion has a fixed supply its value will rise relative to RUB whenever the RUB experiences inflation, protecting user’s monetary wealth.

While Kolion cannot be mined it can be earned via the ‘plowing’ process, which entails helping residents of Kolionovo with farming and construction work. Kolion can be used to purchase products produced by the local Kolionovo farming economy, which includes many varieties of food.

One of the primary goals of Kolion is to be used as a currency for crowdfunding local projects in Kolionovo, coming back to the original reason Mikhail Shlyapnikov created the cryptocurrency in the first place. He wants money to be available to those who need it without the high interest rates that banks in the region charge.

Currently, the Kolion has a market cap in excess of USD 810,000, and while trading volume on the one exchange its listed on is only USD 10,000 per day, this doesn’t factor in all the peer to peer trading that is ongoing in Kolionovo. Kolion can be directly exchanged for Bitcoin and WAVES.

Overall, the Kolion cryptocurrency is providing the village of Kolionovo economic freedom and control over their own money like never before, and insulating them from the destructive nature of the highly inflationary RUB. Mikhail Shlyapnikov does not want to expand the Kolion beyond the village of Kolionovo, but it can be used as an example of how cryptocurrency can improve the economies of communities around the world.

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Key Points

• Bitcoin price extended its downside correction and declined below $7,400 against the US Dollar.
• There was a break below a major ascending channel with support at $7,520 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair is now trading well below the $7,550 pivot level and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

Bitcoin price has moved into a short-term bearish zone below $7,550 against the US Dollar. BTC/USD could correct higher, but upsides are likely to be capped.

Bitcoin Price Analysis

After trading above the $7,700 level, bitcoin price faced selling pressure against the US Dollar. The BTC/USD pair topped at $7,779 and started a downside move. The price declined and moved below the $7,600 and $7,500 support levels. The most important move was a close below the $7,550 pivot level and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

Moreover, there was a break below a major ascending channel with support at $7,520 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair. The pair even moved below the $7,400 level a formed a new intraday low at $7,369. At the moment, the price is consolidating losses around $7,400. An initial resistance is around the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $7,779 high to $7,369 low. Any further gains could push the price towards the $7,550 pivot level, which is a major barrier. Additionally, the 50% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $7,779 high to $7,369 low is at $7,574.

Looking at the chart, the price likely moved into a short-term bearish zone below $7,550. To initiate a fresh bullish wave the price has to move past $7,550 and settle above the 100 hourly SMA. On the downside, supports are seen at $7,350 and $7,250.

Looking at the technical indicators:              

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

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI is recovering from the oversold levels.

Major Support Level – $7,250

Major Resistance Level – $7,550

The post Bitcoin Price Watch: BTC/USD Turned Short-term Bearish appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Highlights

• Ethereum classic price declined recently and cleared a major support at $15.50 against the US dollar.
• There was a break below a major bullish trend line with support at $15.50 on the hourly chart of the ETC/USD pair (Data feed via Kraken).
• The pair may continue to move down towards the next supports at $14.50 and $14.20.

Ethereum classic price is currently under pressure against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. ETC/USD settled below $15.50, which is a short-term bearish sign.

Ethereum Classic Price Resistance

After a decent upside move, ETC price faced a strong selling interest below the $16.50 level against the US dollar. The ETC/USD pair traded as high as $16.44 before starting a downside correction. It declined and moved below a few support levels such as $16.00 and $15.80. The most important move was a close below the $15.50 support and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

During the decline, the price broke the 50% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $14.20 low to $16.44 high. More importantly, there was a break below a major bullish trend line with support at $15.50 on the hourly chart of the ETC/USD pair. The pair traded as low as $14.74 recently and is currently consolidating losses. On the upside, an initial resistance is near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $16.44 high to $14.74 low. However, the most significant hurdle for buyers is near $15.50 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

The chart suggests that the price may correct a few points, but it could face sellers near $15.50. On the downside, a break below the recent low of $14.74 might push the price towards the next supports at $14.50 and $14.20.

Hourly MACD – The MACD for ETC/USD has moved back in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETC/USD is moving higher from the oversold levels near 35.

Major Support Level – $14.50

Major Resistance Level – $15.50

The post Ethereum Classic Price Analysis: ETC/USD Broke Key Support appeared first on NewsBTC.