Day: June 9, 2018

Recent data from Chainalysis — a blockchain research company, as published in Financial Times shows that the amount of Bitcoin owned by long-term investors is now almost equaled by speculators, reports Cointelegraph.

Day trading has increased since the end of last year and the amount held by this group is thought to have risen to 5.1 mln BTC according to the report compared to 6mln BTC held by investors hanging on in for the long-term, that is over a period of one year.

It appears, according to the Financial Times, that Bitcoin volumes have fallen in tandem to prices, from $4 bln daily in December to $1 bln today. It’s thought this may be a feature in Bitcoins decline in price, Chainalysis chief economist Philip Gradwell suggests. He estimates that longer-term holders sold at least $30 billion worth of bitcoin to new speculators over the December to April period, with half of this movement taking place in December alone.

Another feature of the current situation shown by the data is the imbalance of wealth distribution of the digital currency, that is small numbers of investors holding a vast amount of the cryptocurrency. Of the roughly 17 mln Bitcoin available, the data show that, as of April 2018, around 1,600 Bitcoin wallets hold at least 1,000 bitcoins each, equalling almost 5 mln BTC and accounting for almost a third of all Bitcoin in circulation.

Six months after its peak, bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency, though its price has fallen to about $7,650 at the time of publication. It follows that for each of the bitcoin millionaires there are numerous casualties that came into cryptocurrency too late, unlike those who established themselves early and reaped the benefits.

One of these is a 39-year-old who has made enough money from trading digital currencies over 5 years to pay off his mortgage, buy a Mercedes and now swap office life for managing his remaining crypto investments full-time, writes The Irish Times.

“It was very euphoric…It’s been life-changing for me at this point,” says the California-based father of two, who has a cult-like Twitter following under the pen name ‘bitcoin Dad’.

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At press time, the father of cryptocurrencies is standing its ground at $7,600. The coin has undergone no change over the last 24 hours, suggesting that present support levels are holding up, but that resistance at $7,600 is proving difficult to overpower.

One source states that bitcoin is “gathering steam” to move up, and is taking “multiple supports from lower levels.” On the technical charts, an ascending trendline has formed, insinuating that bitcoin will indeed exhibit further bullish behavior in the coming weeks, though this could potentially be in the short-term. The source mentions that bitcoin will ultimately encounter further resistance at $7,700 and $7,775 respectively.

In addition, it appears the uncertainty surrounding regulatory efforts in the future is taking a toll on bitcoin’s respective trading. Forbes reports that bitcoin trading has ultimately decreased; that volumes have been reduced, thus potentially increasing volatility.

Several analysts acknowledge the change in the bitcoin arena, but say that the behaviors exhibited do not specifically pertain to bitcoin, and are running rampant across the general crypto space.

“It seems a lot of activity has been suppressed,” says Marshall Swatt, founder and president of the Swatt Exchange. He emphasizes that bitcoin is not the only entity in trouble, and that several cryptocurrencies have experienced decreases in respective trading.

Digital currency trader and investor Marius Rupsys explains that people are simply looking for stronger regulatory clarity before they step deeper into the cryptocurrency arena, which he believes may be coming sooner than anticipated. He states that SEC chairman Jay Clayton’s recent affirmation that bitcoin is not a security is very positive, and he praises the agency’s decision to appoint a crypto czar, saying it will lead to stronger developments and trust amongst both traders and financial authorities.

“This gives confidence that the SEC is being open in presenting their position regarding crypto assets,” he explains. “I view this as very positive news.”

In the meantime, several technical analysts appear to be of one mind regarding where bitcoin will fall in the coming months. Current sentiment is that a breakout is at hand, though when and how it will occur remains unconfirmed.

Jon Pearlstone, publisher of the Crypto-Patterns newsletter, explains that a tight range in the bitcoin price typically results in further volatility, and that the currency has just as much chance of moving up as it does down.

“In the current set up, a clean breakout above the $8,400 level with strong volume should bring another test of the $10,000 level,” he states. “But if the price breaks down hard through $7,000, it’s likely we’ll see a test of the 2018 lows at the $6,000 level.”

David Johnson – CEO of the cryptocurrency tasking platform Latium – seems to agree.

“The clarity provided by the SEC is certainly a positive for bitcoin, and should provide more overall buying support,” he claims. “Bitcoin has been consolidating for the last two weeks and, in my opinion, is moving towards a breakout. Currently, $7K is a major support level, and if broken, we could see $6.6K very quickly. A sustained price above $8K should signal a move to $9K shortly thereafter.”

There is a lot of excitement surrounding the EOS mainnet launch. So far, things have not gone according to plan by any means. Many issues have been dealt with, yet the official release took much longer than expected. Even so, the main net has launched successfully, which is all most supporters will care about at this stage.

The EOS Mainnet Issues

Facing multiple setbacks when launching a new blockchain is always worrisome. In the case of EOS, a few issues popped up which had nothing to do with the technology itself. First of all, there was a phishing email campaign due to a compromised Zendesk account. That issue was eventually resolved, yet it did raise a lot of criticism in the process.

Additionally, the mainnet was pushed back numerous times. Security vulnerabilities were identified by a Chinese firm several weeks ago. That development is a positive one in the end. Launching a mainnet with issues is never a smart idea. Speaking of bugs, there has been a somewhat official audit by another firm over the past few weeks. Several minor issues have been addressed because of those reports.

There is also the EOS ‘constitution‘ which needs to be highlighted. In a decentralized ecosystem, an official constitution seems counterproductive. With the Block.one team drafting these ‘rules,’ an interesting situation is created. This also seems to indicate there is a central entity controlling EOS, which will not be to the liking of most users. Whether or not that will be a problem, remains to be seen.

The Positive News

Despite all of these setbacks, positive news was received earlier today. The EOS mainnet has, according to the website, officially launched. It is a big milestone for the project. Living up to users’ expectations will prove challenging regardless. If any vulnerability is discovered now, there will be a lot of backlash, for understandable reasons.

For now, the network is still going through its ‘launch sequence.’ That process takes anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to complete successfully. On June 10th, there will be a round of validation by the EOS Mainnet Launch Group. Assuming that validation is successful, the net will be opened to the public.

After the launch, there will be a voting round for the 21 initial Block Producers. This voting process requires 150m tokens to be ‘spent’ on the vote itself. This is the final step which needs to be completed prior to officially launching the EOS mainnet in its official capacity. A very exciting period for EOS supporters, although there is still a long way to go.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across a host of developing nations are currently faced with a ‘financing gap’ that totals nearly US$2 trillion. In China alone, almost 40 million SMEs remain unserved by existing financial institutions. This gap is of growing concern since the World Bank has stated that “SMEs contribute up to 60% of total employment and up to 40% of GDP in developing markets.”

Eximchain is an all-new blockchain-driven platform that aims to bring visibility to the mechanisms underlying the global supply chain finance (SCF) engine, primarily via the implementation of specially devised smart contracts.

The developers of this platform have sought to establish a public, permissionless chain that enables SME buyers and suppliers to create supply chain optimization tools and gain access to affordable capital sources so that their businesses can flourish and prosper.

Owing to its intuitive, smart contract-based ecosystem, Eximchain allows SMEs to quickly implement customized SCF solutions or issue digital tokens on a permissioned fork of Ethereum. Not only that, the service has also adopted a quadratic governance model so as to provide users with practical, finite time security guarantees.

Lastly, it is worth noting that the platform can be employed within a host of domains ranging from finance to procure-to-pay services. This is because it utilizes smart contracts to optimize the global supply chain for buyers, suppliers, and financiers.

Overview of Eximchain

• Eximchain solves issues related to platform adoption by offering SMEs seamless integration into their existing workflows.
• It enables developers to create customized tools for specific businesses and industry use cases.
• Eximchain is an official candidate of the Blockchain Regulatory Sandbox Program in Guiyang, China. It is also a member of the EEA (Enterprise Ethereum Alliance).
• It provides buyers and suppliers with a way to fully automate their contracting processes.
• The interface is highly user-friendly since it makes use of a lot of visual cues and information.

Key Features

For starters, Eximchain allows SMEs to gain access to affordable capital sources by providing financiers with visibility into the supply chain cash flow. Also, in the near future, the company plans to deploy a ‘Multi-Party Dynamic Contracting’ protocol that will not allow any of the participating actors to improve their profit yield by deciding to deviate from the optimal set of predetermined decision data sets.

Key aspects of the platform

Another key to the Eximchain ecosystem is that buyers and suppliers can quite easily automate their contracting processes even if they have vastly different and conflicting financial objectives. Buyers and suppliers can carefully design supply contracts to maximize profits from the supply chain with a greater understanding of demand, inventory and upstream/downstream operations from a trusted and secure network. Not only that, since all of the native interactions and agreements are saved automatically on the blockchain, there is always a traceable record of each transaction available on the network at all times.

Financiers that are brought onboard the Eximchain network are provided with aligned incentives. Since the system provides financial institutions with access to smart contract history between two parties, they are better able to estimate the risks associated with voluminous monetary transactions. Access to this smart contract information also provides independent financiers with an opportunity to fund and generate value from these transactions.

Lastly, Eximchain allows developers to build customized smart contract solutions based upon the needs of specific industries and users. In addition, even banks and anchor buyers can use this platform and scale it based on their needs by involving upstream and downstream players. Although the solutions being provided are varied, the contracting process is highly standardized and can be seamlessly integrated into the existing bidding processes and supply chain management tools in use by various companies today.

How it Works

Eximchain has been designed to simplify complex multiparty transactions by using blockchain protocols that are able to resolve issues related to information asymmetry. In terms of its consensus mechanism, instead of using the widely popular proof-of-work (mining) algorithm, Eximchain implements a vote-based consensus algorithm that forks QuorumChain to add a few governance rules.

Layered overview of Eximchain’s key components

According to the official company roadmap, the platform will also be adopting the recently developed Istanbul BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) into its mainframe (Quorum), thus ensuring a high degree of settlement finality as well as faster settlements.

Another key functional aspect of Eximchain is its integration of incentives for developer pools, clients, and corporates at the protocol level. Through the use of a quadratic voting-based governance model, the platform allows a series of checks and balances to be performed between nodes. The core system module analyzes the balance of power among actors in the system, thus discouraging collusion and maintaining the overall robustness of the system.

About the Team

Key personnel associated with this project

Hope Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Eximchain. She holds a B.A. from Peking University as well as an MBA from MIT. According to her professional bio, Liu has handled cross-border transactions for UBS Asia for nearly seven years. Additionally, she is part of the North America Blockchain Association and has been working at the MIT Media Lab since 2015.

Juan Sebastian Huertas is the CTO and co-founder of this venture. He possesses a bachelor’s degree in computer science from MIT and has been active in the coding scene since the age of 13.

Token Performance

Released into the crypto market two weeks ago, EXC (Eximchain’s native currency) has been fairly stable in value since its introduction.

EXC token lifetime performance data (courtesy of CoinMarketCap)

Initially trading at $0.65, the currency hit its value high on June 4, when the price of a single token scaled up to an impressive $0.94.

As of June 8, EXC is trading at $0.72 per token and possesses a market cap of $48,704,962. In all, a total of 150,000,000 EXC has been minted, out of which only 67,306,444 tokens are currently in circulation.

Final thoughts

Eximchain’s public blockchain network provides the cryptoverse with a solution that helps better manage today’s supply chain systems. The platform also helps enterprises connect, transact, and share information more efficiently and securely with one another.

As a result of its multi-faceted approach to blockchain optimization, it would not be surprising to see this platform do well this year and even be featured among the top crypto projects of 2018.

If you would like to start investing in Eximchain, EXC trading pairs are currently available on IDEX.

A foundational crypto ecosystem website, Bitcoin.org, promoted its new look this week. Designed to be more enticing and up-to-date, the site’s changes involve more than just cosmetics and graphics. For example, it has removed references to incredibly popular resources such as Coinbase, Blockchain.com, and Bitpay.  

Also read: Russian Farming Village: Local Crypto, Bitcoin Reserves, No Govt Money

Bitcoin.org Gets a New Look, and More

The mysterious avatar Cobra, apparently a key figure behind the important educational resource Bitcoin.org, tweeted this week, “We’ve finally updated http://Bitcoin.org to look modern and fresh. Check out the new design. Now people learning about Bitcoin for the first time can be presented with a more up to date and responsive website!”

Unpacking changes to the site tells a complicated story, one that involves ongoing debates within the crypto space. Right away, those clicking over to the new site are indeed greeted with stock Wix-like landing pages. The tri-color scheme is handsome and masculine, sporting burnt oranges, white, black. Pages load nicely enough, fast. Links and layout are clean and easy to access, read.

Only a few clicks in, however, a few other changes emerge. Weathered and tested ecosystem businesses such as Coinbase, Blockchain.com, and Bitpay aren’t even alluded to. Any organization serious about onboarding new folks would be hard pressed to find three private firms more responsible for introducing newbies to experiencing crypto, no matter how flawed.

Org’s history is said to begin (August 2009) shortly after Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator released the client’s first iteration, and the site quickly became known as the ecosystem’s homepage. Controversy remains about just who began the site much less who now maintains it. Fin core dev Martti Malmi is said to be a good guess due to early registration records and attributions. Today, social media bomb thrower @CobraBitcoin, itself an unknown personage, is widely considered Org’s head or manager.   

Mission Schizophrenia

Though the cosmetic upgrade is novel, Org removing some ideas and inserting new ones is not. As a first online educational source, it made the case for years how the promise of bitcoin was both peer-to-peer and relatively quick and cheap. To its credit, the site was one of the only bitcoin core (BTC) supporters to face reality by late 2017. Transactions were no longer fast, and various devs were actively proposing off chain solutions. Fees were huge.

By the start of this year, Cobra seemed to have a sobering change of heart, tweeting, “I feel like I’ve lost a piece of my soul after merging this pull request. At some point we all forgot that Bitcoin was supposed to be decentralized money, and we became OK with outrageous fees and centralized mining, all to chase the $$$.” Prominent references to “peer-to-peer transactions” and “fast” and “low processing fees” were scrubbed from the site completely.  

The controversial bitcoin influencer went on to post pro bitcoin cash (BCH) arguments, or lauds, very clearly stunning supporters who expected less charitable appraisals of BCH. And though Cobra was and continued to be at least open to rebuilding the fractured community in BCH form, it was also equally obvious where ultimate sympathies lay.

Curiously, just a few months later, by Spring of this year, Cobra and Org once again decided to make an abrupt change, a restoration. Prior to the present design changes, the site reinserted phrasing once synonymous with bitcoin core. Peer-to-peer returned. As did the other traits. Rather than continuing down the path of a dark night of the soul, Cobra chalked up the previous Twitter lament as “temporary.”   

What do you think about Bitcoin.org’s changes? Let us know in the comments. 

Images via the Pixabay, Bitcoin.org

Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

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Cryptocurrencies that are developed with the aim of replacing sovereign currencies such as the US dollar or the Japanese yen like Bitcoin are not securities. This is according to Jay Clayton, the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In an interview with CNBC, Clayton also stated that most of the ICOs currently in the market fall into the securities category and are consequently under the SEC’s jurisdiction.

Are Ether and XRP Securities?

Clayton explained what a token is:

A token, a digital asset where I give you my money and you go off and make a venture, like you have some company you want to start. In return for me giving you my money, you tell me that you can give me a return or that I can get a return on the secondary market by selling my token to somebody. That is a security and we regulate that; we regulate the offering and the trading of that security. That’s our job and we’ve been doing it for a long time.

Clayton was adamant that the SEC would crack down on ICOs that don’t follow the stipulated guidelines. While he expressed the commission’s support for compliant ICOs, he warned those whose tokens qualify as securities that the SEC will not show any fear or favor in its implementation of the laid-out regulations.

The SEC will not change its current policies just to appease the cryptocurrency community, Clayton stated. These policies have been in place for decades and have shaped a $19 trillion industry which is the envy of the world, he added. Any ICO issuer who follows the guidelines will, however, have the full support of the commission.

Is Ether a security? Clayton avoided giving the SEC’s verdict on whether or not the world’s most valuable altcoin is a security.

I’m not going to comment on specific crypto assets and whether they are a security or not a security.

Clayton also delved into Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds), a fairly new area that’s been getting increased attention in recent months.

Our division of investment management has been very clear with the industry about the types of things we are going to need in any asset class if we are going to approve a product. One of those things is, is the pricing something people can rely on? Also, asset verification. And our communication to the marketplace for this has been very clear.

Bitcoin ETFs have continued to attract attention from a number of investment firms. New York-based investment firm VanEck announced on June 6 that it had partnered with fintech firm SolidX to list a physically-backed bitcoin ETF that the two companies say will be insured against loss or theft of bitcoin. The ETF has yet to be created, and further information on what assets the companies intend to back the fund with are yet to be released.

The SEC has been engaged in a tough balancing act between protecting consumers and stopping fraudsters on one hand, and supporting innovation on the other. Nevertheless, the industry watchdog has continued to show signs of a progressive approach as it strives to keep up with the fast-changing nature of the nascent industry. It recently appointed one of its Cyber Unit directors, Valerie Szczepanik, to the newly-created role of Associate Director of the Division of Corporation Finance and Senior Advisor for Digital Assets and Innovation. In her new job, Valerie will coordinate efforts across various divisions of the SEC in regards to the application of securities laws to emerging technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Considering the recent decision by Google to ban advertisements for cryptocurrency, one has to wonder what the plan is over at Google. It seems that Google sees cryptocurrency as an online threat and wishes to protect its users from such threats.

As of this month, Google has updated its rules for ads with the following restrictions:

• Binary options and synonymous products
• Cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice)

The asserted reason for these new regulations concerning cryptocurrencies is that crypto has no regulatory body to ensure that it is not being used by criminals for the purposes of money laundering or trafficking of unlawful goods. It was reported by the Stasis Group that some 80% of initial coin offerings were somehow fraudulent, and this was the reasoning behind Google’s recent decision not to advertise any products resembling cryptocurrency.

However, this blanket policy has made some people angry, causing them to call the move unfair because it will lump the legitimate in with the fraudulent, and give all cryptocurrencies a bad name and reputation.

Ed Cooper, head of mobile at Revolut, wants “a more targeted approach”, and believes that Google’s ban is “heavy-handed” because one wouldn’t impose a ban on job postings just because some of them have been used by scammers to set up the unsuspecting.

Considering the fact that Google is investing a lot of its own money in blockchain technologies, some experts believe this move may not be about protecting Google’s users.  Some believe that Google has other ideas, and that the ban is more about protecting its own interests. It has been reported that Google holds the number-two position among big investors in blockchain companies, having a total of 6 investments that span the services of private enterprises and merchants. In spite of the ban, it seems that Google hopes to profit from its investments in blockchain technology and this industry.

Phillip Nunn, the CEO of Blackmore Group, told Real Business that he suspects Google’s ban was enacted to facilitate the company’s potential plans of introducing its own cryptocurrency, and unfairly removing all other cryptocurrency advertisements, in order to give Google the upper hand. If this is true, then we have to ask whether Google can be trusted, and just what is their endgame?

David Coker, lecturer in accounting, finance and governance at Westminster Business School, claims we shouldn’t trust Google because it has been shown to profit from things like America’s opioid problems – so much, in fact, that it had to give up some $500 million dollars because of its dealings with Canadian online pharmacies selling drugs to Americans.

Coker went on to say that Google has been accused in court of making trademark infringement easy through its AdWords platform. And in its yearly “bad ads” report, it admitted to having taken money from people distributing fake news.

What does all this tell us, you ask? At the very least, it tells us that you should question everything, and don’t allow the business decisions of others to directly influence your own.

Ant Financial – Alibaba affiliate has raised approximately $14 billion to accelerate technological innovations. The equity fund targets top technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things and the blockchain technology. The fund was raised in company’s series C round funding.

Ant Financial is a Chinese financial service provider with over 800 million subscribers using its payment services every year. It is also an affiliate of Alibaba, the China-based giant for commercial services. It was founded in 2004 as Alipay and was rebranded later on in 2014 to Ant Financial.

The announcement came just days after a report indicated that the firm is supporting technological services. Thus confirming the company’s commitment to support the development of the technologies as indicated in the report.

Eric Jing, the CEO of Ant Financial dismissed the ICO speculations circulated over the media in March saying that the institution’s prime focus was on cross blockchain compatibility projects.

Mr. Jing added that they will continue to invest in technology to fulfill the unmet financial service inclusions needs. He said that the focus is to build an ecosystem that would enable everyone to benefit from the development of the digital economy anywhere they might be.

Ant Financial has now shifted focus from consumer-related financial services to technology development, but with a keen eye for using innovation in technology to meet the unfulfilled financial needs.

The objective of Ant Financial was to provide consumer financial services. The announcement to focus on technological development is not surprising. This follows a recent crackdown on the risks of the financial system carried out by the Chinese government as reported by Reuters on Tuesday.

Both Ant Financial and Alibaba are not new in the development of blockchain applications. Ant Financial has extended support to blockchain-based charity platform. Alibaba, on the other hand, has tested its flagship project for tracking international shipments on the blockchain.

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Crypto Valley’s Zug will conduct Switzerland’s first blockchain-powered municipal trial vote this summer

Google searches for Bitcoin have dropped greatly this year, a reflection of the current turmoil in the market. According to a report by CNBC, searches have dropped by 75% this year from their record highs at the peak of the upward price trend in December of last year. Quoting data from Google Trends, CNBC reports that other top cryptos haven’t fared well either, with Ripple and Bitcoin Cash dropping by even greater margins. In stark contrast, EOS has seen a tremendous rise in popularity, and this is reflected by an increase in the number of Google searches on the topic.

“Bitcoin Needs a New Narrative”

Data from Google Trends shows a steeply declining interest in Bitcoin. Google Trends is a public web resource provided by Google that shows how often a certain search term is entered relative to the platform’s total search volume. In the last three months, the number of Bitcoin-related Google searches has fallen by half. The massive drop has been caused by the great decline in crypto prices, with the industry having shed more than half its value since February. According to the co-founder of DataTrek Research, Nicolas Colas, who was quoted in the report, what Bitcoin currently needs the most is “a new narrative in order to reestablish global attention.”

Popularity on Google Trends is represented by numbers, with 1 being the lowest and 100 the highest. In December, when interest in Bitcoin was at an all-time high, its popularity stood at 37. However, it has dropped to a measly 9 as of June 2.

Further demonstrating the reduced interest in Bitcoin is the rate of Bitcoin wallet growth since last year. At the height of the Bitcoin rise, the average wallet growth rate stood at 7.6%. It has since dropped to a year-to-date rate of 3.7%, with the average for April and May standing at an even lower 2%. While it’s usually ignored, Colas says this metric is a useful price determinant.

The comparisons between the 2017 back half comps (excellent) and 2018-to-date (poor) are stark and explain essentially all of bitcoin’s fall from grace this year. Simply put, history shows bitcoin wallet growth needs to be +5%/month to see meaningful price appreciation.

Other top digital currencies have not fared well either. The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, has experienced a 70% decline in popularity, with Bitcoin Cash declining by 82%. Ripple has experienced the biggest decline among the top cryptos at 87%. This decline mirrors Ripple’s price performance this year, with XRP being the worst-performing digital currency in the top 10 after losing more than 75% of its value. For the fifth-largest crypto, EOS, the narrative couldn’t be more different. Spurred by its recent record-setting unorthodox ICO and the launch of its mainnet, EOS has continued to attract attention globally, which has led to an incredible 97% rise in the number of related Google searches this year.

Will the Dwindling Interest Be Rekindled?

The decline in Google searches shows an expected and natural dwindling interest in the industry. With most people having heard of the crypto industry as a get-rich-quick scheme that was churning out millionaires almost every day, their interest was purely intertwined with the rise in prices. Once the prices started falling, this group of people vanished.  A sustained increase in the price of Bitcoin is sure to bring a huge crowd back with it. Currently priced at $7,600, the pioneer digital currency has appeared unable to break above the $8,000 mark even with continued institutional interest.

Billionaire investor Mike Novogratz commented at the Bloomberg Invest Summit that cryptocurrency’s market cap is heading towards 20 trillion USD. This would be a tremendous increase from the current cryptocurrency market cap near 340 billion USD today.

If the cryptocurrency market cap hits 20 trillion USD like Mike Novogratz expects, it would be approximately a 6000% price increase. Each Bitcoin would possibly be worth 500,000 USD in such a scenario. Although this price increase sounds huge and unrealistic, it is not unprecedented for the cryptocurrency world. Since the first Bitcoin purchase occurred in 2010, a couple large pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins, the price of Bitcoin is up over 200 million percent. When viewed in that perspective the 6,000% increase that Mike Novogratz is called for doesn’t seem so crazy.

Mike Novogratz says that if the cryptocurrency rally which peaked around the beginning of 2018 is to be considered a bubble then it’s like the dot com bubble of 1996 which occurred before the much bigger dot com bubble of 1999 where the value of that industry hit 6 trillion USD.

Novogratz says that cryptocurrency is a global revolution with a global market that is stirring up a global mania, as opposed to the dot com bubble which was only popular in the United States. He states that cryptocurrency won’t feel like a bubble to him until the market hits 20 trillion USD.

According to Novogratz the most recent rally that brought Bitcoin prices to 20,000 USD was caused by individual and retail traders, but up to this point, institutional investors have barely invested even though there is growing demand from them. He says one thing that has been slowing things down is lack of proper custodial solutions for big investments.

Eventually, Novogratz expects a reputable firm with the proper setup to attract a big cryptocurrency investment, inducing someone else to buy, and so on and so forth until cryptocurrency is commonplace in institutional investor’s portfolios.

If Mike Novogratz is right, it is quite a bargain to purchase Bitcoin today at the price of 7,500 USD per coin.

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Colombian banks close all accounts of S. American crypto exchange Buda, following a similar move against the exchange in Chile this March

There is an interesting future ahead for the video content creation industry. This is especially true when it comes to blockchain technology and its potential impact in this area. Verasity is intent on bringing together the best of both worlds, although doing so will prove incredibly challenging.

Verasity in a Nutshell

Various blockchain firms are looking to disrupt existing industries and business models. It will not be that easy to do so, although Verasity has come up with an interesting approach. This platform is mainly focused on video sharing as well as offering an innovative economic model and putting viewers first. Additionally, content advertisers will have some interesting options to look forward to as well.

How Does it Work?

There will be three main pillars to the Verasity ecosystem. First of all, viewers will benefit from microtransactions, as they will earn VERA tokens by browsing content. Furthermore, users can elect to view specific advertisements and video content on the platform.

Secondly, content creators can benefit from various innovative features. They include donations for viewers, exclusive pay-per-view content, subscriptions, and the Spark Marketplace. This latter item is a rather unique feature, as it allows content creators to sell “rates” on their channels to other participants. As such, an original content creator will earn a share of the income from his or her channel. It’s an intriguing concept that warrants further investigation.

Last but not least, Verasity wants to appease advertisers as much as possible. Rather than force them to pay viewers to watch their ads, Verasity aims to do things differently, which can only be considered a good thing. Advertisers will get the most bang for their buck based on the Verasity Proof of View technology to provide auditable audience metrics.

The VERA Token

Yet again, we see a new blockchain venture which feels it needs its own token instead of embracing Ethereum or Bitcoin. The VERA token will facilitate all token transactions taking place on the platform. It will also utilize a unique distribution model to negate volatility. New tokens will be added to the bonus pool, creating a strategic distribution model. The tokens are currently being sold through an initial coin offering.

The Road Ahead

While the Verasity concept sounds appealing, the public will not see this technology go live until Q3 of 2018, which is when the MVP versions of the native player, desktop apps, and wallet will be introduced. A beta version of the native VeraPay solution will not be activated until Q4 of 2018, which is when the full version of the Verasity blockchain will be unveiled as well. There’s a lot to look forward to, assuming the developers can deliver on their initial promises.

Nebulas, a new-generation blockchain ecosystem, is broadening its Incentive Program by introducing Super Contributor incentives. The Nebulas Incentive Program rewards developers and referrers who bring quality decentralized applications to the Nebulas blockchain. With Super Contributors, community members will now be able to win NAS rewards simply for inviting more people to join the Nebulas ecosystem. Super Contributors will share a 10,000 NAS reward, and will also be able to vote on the best Dapps each week in the Nebulas Incentive Program.

The Nebulas Incentive Program, which rewards developers and referrers who bring high-quality decentralized apps (Dapps) to the Nebulas blockchain, is being upgraded. On June 10, 2018 (UTC+8), the Program will introduce Super Contributors, a new referral program that rewards those who invite new users to the Nebulas ecosystem. This will add both a new method to earn NAS rewards, and voting rights for the community, within the Nebulas Incentive Program.

Super Contributor incentives are a new referral plan within the Nebulas Incentive Program. Currently, The Nebulas Program is comprised of two reward streams: Developer and Referral rewards. Developer rewards are distributed to those who build the best Dapps on Nebulas.  Referral rewards, meanwhile, are distributed to those who convert the greatest number of developers to build Dapps on the Nebulas (an invited developer that registers on Nebulas but does not build a dapp is not counted as a successful referral).

With Super Contributors, Nebulas will reward those people and organizations that invite any users, including developers and non-developers, to the Nebulas ecosystem. The top-20 accounts that invite the most people to sign up to Nebulas will become Super Contributors. They will share a weekly 10,000 NAS prize amongst them, and also have the chance to decide the Champions, Weekly Developer Champions, second- and third-prize receiver, by voting for the best three Dapps each week.

This Super Contributor upgrade introduces the process of “proof of participation” in the Nebulas ecosystem, and is an early experiment for implementing the Proof of Devotion consensus protocol on Nebulas blockchain. Furthermore, involving Super Contributors in the decision-making process for determining the best Dapps in Nebulas Incentive Program is a step towards achieving a fully autonomous blockchain ecosystem run by the community.

The Super Contributor mechanism will take effect on June 10th, 2018, and run for a four-week period until July 8, 2018. To win a chance to become a Super Contributor, users need only register on the Nebulas Incentive Program website (incentive.nebulas.io) and obtain a unique invitation, and then invite others to register on Nebulas using this code. All community members, industry media, influencers, exchanges, and other groups and individuals, are encouraged to participate.

The Nebulas Chain (NAS) is a new generation of public blockchain and dedicated to building a collaborative ecosystem with sustainable upgrading, and its mainnet was launched on March 30th, 2018. Nebulas features an original blockchain value discovery system, forward-looking incentive and consensus mechanisms, and the ability to avoid hard forks through self-evolution.

The main Nebulas blockchain network launched on March 30th, and this was followed by the debut of the Nebulas Incentive Program at the beginning of May. Since then, nearly 3,000 Dapps have been deployed on Nebulas, surpassing the number of Dapps on Ethereum.

For more details please visit: nebulas.io

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