Day: June 17, 2018

The President of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), Chris Concannon says Ethereum futures could be available soon, following a decision from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that Ethereum won’t be regulated as a security.

The CBOE President says this decision gets rid of a major stumbling block that was hindering the path towards legally operating an Ethereum futures exchange, and that he is pleased with the SEC for making this clarification. Apparently, CBOE has been thinking about offering Ethereum futures trading since it first launched its Bitcoin futures exchange in December 2017. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the top 2 cryptocurrencies with market caps of 112 billion USD and 50 billion USD respectively as of this writing, 57% of the total cryptocurrency market cap of 281 billion USD.

The SEC provided some guidance for when cryptocurrencies can be defined as securities and when they do not meet the criteria. The Director of the Division of Corporate Finance at the SEC, William Hinman, said that any cryptocurrency which is sufficiently decentralized so no individual or organization is controlling it wont be considered a security. He explicitly stated that Ethereum is not a security and therefore is not under the jurisdiction of the SEC, making Bitcoin and Ethereum the only cryptocurrencies that have been given an all-clear by the SEC.

Ethereum prices rose from 480 USD to 520 USD following the SEC decision, and have since leveled off near 500 USD. The SEC decision is very positive news for the cryptocurrency world since now individuals and exchanges can trade Ethereum in the United States without an SEC broker-dealer license.

Bitcoin futures have been popular among institutional investment firms like Susquehanna International Group and may provide an avenue for institutional money to enter the Ethereum market. However, there is some concern that Bitcoin futures contract trading has damaged the market via manipulation, and that this same sort of manipulation could become an issue for the Ethereum market.

Bitcoin futures contracts can be used to short sell the market, where investors bet on the market going down and get more profit the lower the market goes. Thomas Lee from Fundstrat Global Advisors says investors might be selling lots of Bitcoin to crash the price in order to increase profits from their short positions. If this is true then the same sort of damaging manipulation would be possible on the Ethereum market after future contracts launch on CBOE.

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UK company specializing in the manufacture of electric bicycles has come up with the novel idea of creating the world’s first e-bike that mines cryptocurrency, writes Cycling Industry News.

The company 50cycles has come up with the TOBA series cryptocurrency mining electric bicycle which will earn users cryptocurrency as they ride, generating ‘LoyalCoin’ at a rate of around £20 worth to every 1,000 miles ridden.

After furious pedalling users will be able to cash in coins in a number of outlets and trade for major digital tokens, many of which are accepted on the manufacturers website, Founder, and CEO of 50cycles, Scott Snaith claimed, “This is not only the first electric bike of its kind, but it will also be the first product ever to be tokenised and which issues reward for use.”

Snaith said that he was inspired by electric bikes being popularised in Japan and has basically adapted that idea to new technologies such as blockchain. He added, “we have always been a company that moves ahead of the times by embracing the latest technology.”

“Just like we saw the potential in electric bikes in Tokyo 15 years ago, we now see the promise and future in blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and product tokenization.”

He sees the project as an environmentally friendly concept as well as a crypto generating social environment rewarding those devoted to green transportation. By allowing discounts to those buying a TOBA using cryptocurrency, everyone wins.

Customer will be able to monitor their pedal power through a mobile app, monitoring their LoyalCoin token count as they go, and each bike will have its own owner’s digital key.

There have been a few reports of both companies and individuals finding ingenious ways to cut through the enormous use of power needed for crypto mining, such as the QC 1-Crypto heater which at a glance with its minimalist looks and shiny walnut top looks every bit like a home appliance, but actually it’s heating the users room using processors that are churning out Bitcoin whilst one sleeps, writes Co.design.

Alabama IT worker Lee, gave up his graphics card that he was using for Bitcoin mining for his bathtub, reports Motherboard. This turned out to be a much better tool for the job. By using ambient air pulled into a system to cool his ASICs and heated air pushed through a water-to-air intercooler pumped through from his bathtub, he generated enough computer heated water to keep his mining habits up to par.

The only problem was, he generated bathwater of 122F/50C, so fearing for the life of his pets he decided to halt his bathtub mining activities.

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The post Cycle Your Way to Bitcoin With the Latest TOBA Crypto Mining Pushbike appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Despite positive news regarding popular South Korean based cryptocurrency, Icon, a smart contract bug has temporarily crippled the transfer of the ICX ERC-20 token.

!= Or ==, Which One Is Correct?

It was recently revealed that a flaw in ICX’s smart contract allowed for users to disable the transfer of all ICX ERC-20 tokens.

Once the public was made aware of this bug, users begin to spam the disable function on ICX’s Ethereum smart contract, whether out of malicious intent or otherwise. 

According to Reddit user, ‘ThrashSilence’, the flaw is only composed of one incorrect character, noting:

• != means NOT EQUAL
• == means EQUAL

In this case, the contract is enforcing that the wallet address is NOT equal to a specified one, when it should be equal. This allows any address except the contract creator to enable or disable token transfers for everyone.

Many users began to criticize the Icon team, which currently runs a cryptocurrency with a market cap of over $750 million according to CoinMarketCap.

Another Reddit user, ‘_dnov’, stated:

How can you have millions of dollars and not invest in software testers? I mean how? No matter how good you are, some testing component should be crucial in your development process, especially at that scale.

‘_dnov’ along with a multitude of other Reddit users have brought up a valid point. ICX is now the 23rd largest cryptocurrency, by no means a small or unknown project. It is only logical that the code of the Icon mainnet should be clear of any glaring errors, especially one as important as the one found earlier today.

If transactions are disabled, what use does the affected cryptocurrency have, especially with such an influential project like ICX?

Upcoming Mainnet Token Swap

However, others have begun to speculate that this may not be a large problem, as a majority of ICX tokens are stored on a variety of exchanges as a speculative asset. 

Despite this, the Icon team jumped on this issue right away, issuing a temporary fix which has amended the problem, allowing users to resume their ICX token transfers. Once the fix was implemented, users found no trouble in using the smart contract as it was designed to be used. 

Minor bug. Quick solution initiated. Permanent solution already in the works and expected to be done today. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

— Min (@minhokim) June 16, 2018

A representative from ICON, Min Ho Kim, has stated that the Icon team is currently working on a more permanent solution that should mitigate any risk of this specific bug. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that there are other damaging bugs that have yet to be discovered by other community members. 

Earlier this week, Binance announced that it would be supporting the ICX mainnet, and would be exchanging Binance user’s ICX ERC-20 tokens for the mainnet equivalent. This announcement caused ICX to temporarily outperform a majority of the market, jumping over 10% in one day. 

However, after malicious users utilized the aforementioned bug, Binance has had to cease all deposits and withdrawals of the affected cryptocurrency. It is unlikely that this bug will affect the upcoming token swaps.

The ICX mainnet will not contain errors like the aforementioned one, as a large bug on the mainnet could spell disaster for the Icon’s cryptocurrency project and any ambitions that may remain.

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The post A Single Incorrect Character Cripples ICON Blockchain, Bug Fix Implemented appeared first on NewsBTC.