Day: June 27, 2018

The Coinbase UK CEO has confirmed that support for GBP withdrawals and deposits will be rolled out over the next few weeks. In an interview with NewsBTC, he also said that Coinbase Custody has had a ‘lot of interest’ and that they have had to restrict how many investors they can take on.

Support for GBP Payments Incoming

Coinbase UK CEO Zeeshan Feroz said that Coinbase will be supporting GBP wires in the next few weeks. At present, Coinbase use Estonian bank LHV to process payments which are all done in euros. UK users have to withdraw euros from Coinbase using SEPA transfers or via mobile banking apps such as Revolut.

In March, Coinbase partnered with UK bank Barclays which opened them up to both GBP payments and the Faster Payments Scheme. This is one of the first collaborations where a UK bank has agreed to accept money that was previously held as a cryptocurrency.

Feroz told NewsBTC: “The biggest thing for me is rolling out access to faster payments for UK consumers. It’s been a huge challenge for us and I think it was a good result for us to get access to that. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling that out for all customers. UK users will be able to deposit Sterling and withdraw Sterling out into their bank accounts using faster payments.”

Huge Interest by Institutional Investors

Currently, 6% of Bitcoin transactions are made in GBP and the UK economy is the fifth largest by GDP. Feroz has previously pointed out that the UK market is the largest in Europe. However, Coinbase are not just looking to attract individuals but have recently launched a suite of products aimed at instituitonal investors.

On Coinbase Custody, he said: “We have had a lot of interest in custody. We have a pipeline of business, we selected a handful that we’re launching with and we will look to add more on. At the minute, we’re restricting the funnel as to how much we can take on until we feel the project is mature and we’ve taken on the first few customers and ironed out the initial kinks. Then we’ll open it up more.”

When asked if Coinbase will always support the same coins and tokens on both their consumer products and their instituional products, Feroz made reference to recently-acquired Paradex, an exchange based on the 0x protocol which offers support for ERC20 tokens. Coinbase also said recently that they plan to support ERC20 tokens.

Feroz said: “We will start to take a product-specific view in terms of the regulatory profiles of coins and the service they’re providing and if that allows us to extend it beyond the four coins we have, then that’s what we’ll do. You will see our businesses as they grow, the coins supported will maybe diverge. One example of that is Paradex which today is live in Europe with eight coins.”

Feroz also said that while they are looking for regulatory certainty, it is not getting in the way of adding new tokens. He said Coinbase will ‘continue to look into tokens that aren’t securites and add them in the future.’ Pointing out their new broken-dealer and ATS licences in the US, he said that they will be able to offer tokens that are registered with the SEC.

The post Exclusive: Coinbase Will Add GBP Support to Ease Withdrawals in UK appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Highlights

• Ripple price traded close to the $0.4750 resistance where it faced sellers against the US dollar.
• There is a short-term ascending channel in place with support at $0.4620 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken).
• The pair could break the channel support and $0.4600 for a downside extension in the near term.

Ripple price is currently consolidating losses against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. XRP/USD may perhaps resume its decline if it fails to move above $0.4750 and $0.4800.

Ripple Price Resistances

There was a short-term low formed recently near $0.4470 in Ripple price against the US Dollar. The XRP/USD pair started a minor upside correction and traded above the $0.4550 resistance. It succeeded in moving above the 38.2% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $0.4930 high to $0.4478 low. However, the upside move faced a lot of selling interest near the $0.4750 resistance.

The price failed to settle above the 50% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $0.4930 high to $0.4478 low. A fresh downside wave was initiated and the price moved back below $0.4700. It seems like there is a short-term ascending channel in place with support at $0.4620 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair. The pair could bounce back from the channel support at $0.4620. However, to initiate a decent recovery, the price has to move above the $0.4750 resistance. Above this, the next hurdles for buyers are at $0.4800 and $0.4900.

Looking at the chart, if the price fails to hold the $0.4620 and $0.4600 support, it could retest the $0.4470 swing low. The overall price structure is negative as long as XRP/USD is below $0.5000. On the downside, the most important support sits around $0.4200.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for XRP/USD is about to move back in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for XRP/USD is now back below the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $0.4600

Major Resistance Level – $0.4750

The post Ripple Price Analysis: XRP/USD Consolidating Losses appeared first on NewsBTC.

FOMO Moments

Crypto land is stagnant, a few altcoins are afloat; Zilliqa, Ethereum Classic, Icon and Bytom.

Markets have remained stable today, which could be considered a good thing because they haven’t plunged any further. There has been very little momentum in the way of a recovery indicating that further losses are likely. Total market capitalization is still below $250 billion with little signs of a rebound.

Bitcoin has remained flat on the day, trading at the same level it was this time yesterday, around $6,100. Trade volume for BTC has declined marginally from $3.4 billion to $3.2 billion and market cap is hovering around $105 billion. Bitcoin dipped to $6k suddenly a few hours ago but found support and did not slide further. Ethereum has had a tough week and has not moved in the past 24 hours, remaining at $435. Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS and Litecoin are marginally up 2-3% but none are showing any real bullish sentiments.

The rest of the altcoins are a mixed bunch as markets remain stagnant for the time being. The only one showing any kind of positive movement at the moment is Zilliqa which is up 8.3% according to Coinmarketcap. ZIL is currently trading at $0.067, marginally up from yesterday’s level of $0.063. Over the past week it has lost 23% and over the month 40% as cryptos have been crushed. Against Bitcoin ZIL is up 8% on the day to 1100 satoshis. On the week however it has lost 15% against BTC falling from 1300 satoshis this time last Thursday.

The short pump has come from a Coinone listing a couple of hours ago;

질리카 (Zilliqa) 상장 안내 / Zilliqa listing announcement

코인원이 질리카 (Zilliqa)를 상장합니다.

– 입출금 가능 시기 : 2018년 06월 28일 오후 12시 (KST)
– 거래 가능 시기 : 2018년 06월 28일 오후 4시 (KST) (예정)

자세한 사항은 코인원 공식홈페이지를 참고해주시기 바랍니다. pic.twitter.com/soBF19aTir

— Coinone (@coinone_info) June 28, 2018

ZIL is mostly traded on Binance with 23% of the total volume, followed by Huobi with a similar level. Korean exchanges Upbit and Bithumb share 30% in KRW. Trade volume has remained steady at around $24 million and market cap for Zilliqa is around $500 million ranking this altcoin at 25^th in the charts.

Total crypto market capitalization has not moved in the past 24 hours and remains at $246 billion, teetering on the edge of another drop by the looks of things. Daily volume is around $10 billion which is marginally lower than this time last week. Other altcoins showing better than average gains during Asian trade this morning include Ethereum Classic up 5%, Icon with a 4.5% gain on the day, and Bytom climbing 7.6%.

More on Zilliqa can be found here: https://www.zilliqa.com/

FOMO Moments is a section that takes a daily look at the top 25 altcoins during the Asian trading session and analyses the best performing one, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.

The post Cryptocurrency Market Update: Zilliqa (ZIL) Spurts on New Exchange Listing appeared first on NewsBTC.

A research paper from China’s banking regulator suggests the country should let ICOs operate legally under a financial regulatory framework.

Decentralized blockchain-based apps have a wide spectrum of real-life uses, and have been growing in number and variety since the rise of Ethereum and its integrated smart contract technology. Now, there are many different blockchains with smart contracts powering decentralized apps, and these sometimes need data from the physical world to function. Oracles bridge the gap between the physical world and the blockchain, providing data for the execution of smart contracts.

An oracle is simply some code that queries real-time databases and can return answers based on the data. For example, an oracle can be created to tell if the temperature in a Florida orange grove has dropped below freezing. The oracle would read data from a thermometer, and when the temperature hits freezing it would broadcast a message which would execute a smart contract to turn on the sprinkler system to protect the oranges. While counter-intuitive, icing up oranges with a sprinkler can save them from freezing: as ice freezes, it releases latent heat, which keeps the orange itself just above the freezing point.

Other applications for oracles include tracking goods as they arrive at certain points in the supply chain, restocking shelves by tracking when goods in a store fall below critical levels, and any other data in the physical world that a decentralized app could use.

Oracles are especially useful for futures contract trading platforms called prediction markets, which is essentially a form of gambling. Outcomes of sports games, political elections, weather, stock prices, Bitcoin’s price, and anything else that can be bet on can be tracked by an oracle. The oracle executes smart contracts in a decentralized app to distribute funds to those who made accurate bets.

The problem that arises when money becomes involved is making sure the oracle is reporting true data. An example is an oracle that runs a fire insurance smart contract. If the oracle’s answer can be manually controlled by the fire department, then the fire department could theoretically say a house burned down and release the money in an insurance smart contract even when there was no fire, costing the insurance company money. Regardless of whether this was done intentionally, clearly the solution is to find a decentralized and accurate way to feed data to the oracle to make sure its answers are always tied to reality.

On the Ethereum blockchain, oracle output can be tracked in a public immutable ledger, so if an oracle is misbehaving then it can be blacklisted or fixed. A blockchain prediction market platform called Augur claims to solve the problem of misbehaving oracles by rewarding good oracles with REP tokens, and punishing bad oracles. Each oracle must have REP tokens held in a bond, and this bond is forfeited for incorrect information. Whether an answer is correct or not depends on a voting mechanism. Of course, whether the vote can be manipulated or not will determine if this method survives the test of time.

Overall, oracles are an essential piece of technology to connect decentralized blockchain-based apps to the physical world, but to make oracles optimal requires a balancing act between decentralized and centralized.

 

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Facebook’s recent decision to partially lift the ban on crypto ads will not stop a planned legal action against the measure. Crypto associations and businesses from several countries announced earlier this year their intentions to sue internet giants imposing such restrictions. The claimants want to proceed with filing the lawsuit, despite the policy update.

Also read: Study Links Social Media Posts to Bitcoin Prices

Class Action Against Giants Will Be Filed

The class action lawsuit against a number of international IT-corporations will be filed in court, despite the change in the advertising policy of Facebook, confirmed Yuri Pripachkin, president of the Russian Association of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain (RACIB). His organization, along with counterparts from other countries in Europe and Asia, accuse companies like Facebook and Google of banning the ads of cryptocurrencies and ICOs as part of a cartel agreement. Approached by Russian media, Pripachkin said:

We will continue [preparing the lawsuit] since they did not cancel the restriction on ICOs. We’ll press on to the end. We will slightly correct our legal position.

On Tuesday, Facebook announced its decision to allow some crypto ads from pre-approved advertisers, as news.Bitcoin.com reported. Product Management Director, Rob Leathern, posted the updates to the company’s “prohibited financial products and services policy”, stating that the changes will come into force on June 26. However, he also noted that Facebook will continue to prevent ads promoting coin offerings.

In March, the Eurasian Blockchain Association (EBA), of which RACIB is a cofounder, announced intentions to challenge in court the restrictions imposed by companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter. The move was initially supported by the other two founding members of EBA, the Korea Venture Business Association (KOVA) and the Chinese Association of Cryptocurrency Investors (LBTC).

In April, representatives of crypto communities in Switzerland, Kazakhstan, and Armenia joined the effort. The plan is to file the lawsuit in a U.S. jurisdiction – New York and Wyoming were mentioned. The legal costs are to be covered by voluntary donations.

Russians Unhappy with Facebook’s Ban on ICO Ads

According to RACIB’s president, the joint efforts of the crypto and blockchain associations from several countries have influenced Facebook’s latest decision. “Our lawyers are preparing the lawsuit, they [Facebook] have recognized this in advance and understood they had a legally incorrect position. So in order to avoid the international trial with RACIB and the Swiss cryptocurrency association, they’ve chosen to back down,” Yuri Pripachkin suggested, quoted by Moscow News Agency.

The decision to proceed with filing the lawsuit is not surprising. The lifting of the ban by Facebook does not concern ads of Initial Coin Offerings. RACIB has been actively pushing for the adoption of favorable ICO regulations in Russia. Token sales conducted by Russian projects have raised over $300 million USD last year and the association wants to make sure these companies are not seeking better conditions elsewhere.

The most popular social network, Facebook, banned crypto ads in January, followed by the largest global search engine, Google, which introduced restrictions in March. According to Russian media, the biggest search engine in the country, Yandex, has implemented a similar decision, although the company has not officially confirmed that. Microblogging platform Twitter imposed a ban on advertising ICOs at the end of March. It has been reported that Snapchat has also banned advertisements of token sales.

Do you think a class action suit against the ban on crypto ads can successfully challenge the restrictions? Tell us in the comments section below.

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The post Associations Challenging Crypto Ads Ban to Proceed with Lawsuit appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Key Highlights

• ETH price corrected a few points higher towards the $448-450 resistance against the US Dollar.
• Yesterday’s highlighted key bearish trend line is in place with resistance near $452 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).
• The pair struggled to move above $450 and the 100 hourly simple moving average, which is a bearish sign.

Ethereum price remains in a bearish zone against the US Dollar and Bitcoin. ETH/USD could continue to move down as long as it is below $450.

Ethereum Price Upside Hurdle

Yesterday, ETH price moved further lower and traded close to the $420 level against the US Dollar. The ETH/USD pair formed a low at $419.96 before starting an upside correction. It moved higher and broke the $430 resistance. There was also a break above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $473 high to $419 low. However, the upside move was capped by the $450 level.

It seems like the price failed to move above the 50% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $473 high to $419 low. More importantly, the 100 hourly simple moving average protected gains near the $450 level. On the upside, yesterday’s highlighted key bearish trend line is in place with resistance near $452 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair clearly failed to gain momentum above the $450 level and is currently moving lower. An initial support is around the $430 level, below which, the price may revisit the recent low near $419.

Looking at the chart, the price remains at a risk of more losses below $430. To initiate a decent recovery, the price must clear the $450 resistance, 100 hourly SMA, and the trend line. Above $452, the next major hurdle for buyers is near the $470 level.

Hourly MACD – The MACD is slowly moving in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI – The RSI is currently moving lower towards the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $420

Major Resistance Level – $452

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD’s Bearish Trend Intact appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Points

• Bitcoin cash price moved a few points above $700, but it failed to gain momentum against the US Dollar.
• This week’s highlighted important bearish trend line was broken with resistance at $708 on the hourly chart of the BCH/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair failed to gain traction and it could move back below $700 in the near term.

Bitcoin cash price failed to recover above $720 against the US Dollar. BCH/USD may perhaps resume its slide for more losses below $700.

Bitcoin Cash Price Support

Yesterday, there was a minor upside move initiated from the $688 swing low in bitcoin cash price against the US Dollar. The BCH/USD pair tested the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $664 low to $780 high. Later, it started an upside move and traded above the $700 level. More importantly, this week’s highlighted important bearish trend line was broken with resistance at $708 on the hourly chart of the BCH/USD pair.

However, the price failed to gain momentum after it broke the trend line and $700. It also faced a strong resistance near the 38.2% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $780 high to $688 low. Lastly, the 100 hourly simple moving average and the $720 resistance also stopped gains. The price is once again under pressure and it may perhaps break the $700 level. On the downside, supports are seen near the $688 and $665 levels.

Looking at the chart, the price has to move above the $720 resistance and the 100 hourly SMA. The 50% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the $780 high to $688 low is also at $734 to prevent gains. A successful close above $735-740 is needed for buyers to take control.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for BCH/USD is slightly in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BCH/USD is now placed above the 50 level.

Major Support Level – $688

Major Resistance Level – $735

The post Bitcoin Cash Price Analysis: BCH/USD’s Failed Upside Attempt appeared first on NewsBTC.

The most popular dapps face unique barriers to full decentralization that don’t have much to do with the normal scaling complaints about ethereum.

Economic researchers at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy report that central bank digital currencies could provide stability, and are different from crypto, which is too volatile

A Florida district court has published an analysis explaining how Centra Tech’s CTR token is a security. 

As things currently stand, most of the big blockchain players such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are subject to a variety of systemic limitations which hamper mass adoption. One such issue is their scalability, which is poor primarily due to the consensus mechanisms they employ. In addition to this, currencies such as BTC make use of an underlying smart contract architecture that cannot be deployed for consumer grade applications.

Constellation can be viewed as a fault resistant, horizontally scalable, distributed operating system that has the capacity to implement full nodes as a mobile client. This helps foster a more secure framework that does not depend upon a single server.

The platform makes use of specialized service modules including:

• The ExtendedTrustChain (ETC) consensus model
• Proof-of-Meme consensus model

The system also deploys smart contracts as composable microservices which utilize the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The end result is a blockchain platform that ensures high transaction throughput as well as provides customers with a foundation for creating consumer grade distributed applications.

Overview of the System

• Constellation employs a unique horizontal scaling approach which allows for an increase in transaction throughput as the number of network participants increases.
• The native protocol implements a blockchain architecture known as the Extended Trust Chain along with a peer-to-peer layer known as a ‘gossip protocol’.
• Constellation can be used seamlessly on mobile devices as well as laptops, PCs and tablets.
• The platform employs smart contracts through the use of a microservice architecture which allows highly available services to be chained and composed into distributed applications.
• The interface is quite visually aligned and can be used by customers with varying degrees of technical know-how.

Key Features

One of the main issues that plague the cryptoverse today is the scalability of today’s blockchain platforms. In this regard, Constellation is providing customers with a Horizontally Scalable Network (HSN) whose operational capacity lies in complete proportion to the number of customers using the platform at any given time.

Core offerings of the Constellation ecosystem

Additionally, owing to the partitioned consensus protocol that the system follows, the native blockchain is able to infinitely scale the number of transactions per second— thus allowing for rapid transactions. Constellation does not charge any transaction fees but instead employs a reputation-based incentive model which encourages customer participation.

The platform is truly decentralized since it makes use of a reputation-based delegate selection model that enables every network participant to contribute to the overall consensus of the system.

Comparison of TPS rates of various blockchain platforms

Lastly, Constellation is fully mobile-compatible, and owing to its lightweight architecture, all of its nodes can be used in conjunction with any remote device that deploys the platform. It is also worth mentioning that native nodes contained within the system can double-sign transactions and then broadcast them to the network.

How It All Works

As the name suggests, Constellation is comprised of a set of digital entities that govern various aspects of the platform. They include:

(i) Stars: They can be thought of as the building blocks of the platform. They interact directly with the network and allow users to instantiate a star node on a device through which transactions are then issued. Each Star contains a local chain that is composed of its history on the network. This local chain is used to enforce ordering and is identified by its public key.

Constellation’s roadmap

Star Clusters: These entities are collections of Stars which have elected to participate within the consensus mechanism. There is a limit to the number of Stars that can be contained within a cluster. Each time this limit is reached, a new Star Cluster is created and forms locality-sensitive hash blocks. These locality-sensitive hash blocks are then treated like ordinary transactions and hashed by entities known as Galaxies.

Galaxies: Galaxies can be thought of as validators within the ExtendedTrustChain. However, that is not their only role. Metadata about the contents of a proposed block, latency, and failure are sent with locality-sensitive hash blocks to Galaxies. Because they are validators, Galaxies provide a source of truth for removing invalid transactions and decide delegates in Star Clusters.

Black Holes: They are blocks of hashed, locality-sensitive data.

Team Details

Brendan Playford is the CEO of this venture. In addition to possessing over 11 years of experience in business management, he has been involved in the crypto sector as a miner, trader and data scientist. He holds an MSc in physics from University College London.

Wyatt Meldman-Floch is the CTO and core developer of the Constellation ecosystem. He has over 5 years of experience as a software engineer and data scientist, while also possessing a strong background in DApp development and machine learning. According to his LinkedIn bio, he studied physics and mathematics at the College of William and Mary and the University of St. Andrews.

Lastly, Benjamin Jorgensen is the COO of this project. He is primarily an angel investor/entrepreneur and is also responsible for the smooth running of Constellation.

Token Financials

Since DAG is a highly new cryptocurrency, predicting its future is quite difficult. 

DAG token lifetime performance data (courtesy of CoinMarketCap)

As can be seen from the chart above, the value of DAG has remained relatively stable since its inception. While initially trading at $0.032 per token, the price of a single token now stands at $0.031.

As of June 25, DAG possesses a market cap of US$18.7 million as well as a total token supply of 4 billion. However, out of this figure, only 587.1 million tokens are currently in circulation.

Final Thoughts

With Constellation addressing many of the scalability limitations that are inherent in many blockchain projects today, it would not be surprising to see this venture do well by the end of this year.

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

A recent study by Diar reveals that the Lightning Network protocol struggles to process large amounts

The FBI is currently running 130 different cryptocurrency-related investigations, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.