Day: June 30, 2018

Over the years, crypto investors have amassed a lot of wealth, and they are bound to give it back to society. So, why not create a crypto-based nonprofit organization that gives them a platform to do just that? This was the motivation behind GiveCrypto.org, a nonprofit organization founded by Brian Armstrong, the founder of Coinbase. Armstrong, who also serves as the exchange’s CEO, seeks to empower people living in poverty by distributing cryptocurrencies to them, a method that’s cheaper, more efficient and more transparent than existing methods. In the long run, this will not only help alleviate poverty, it will also create local crypto economies in which aid recipients will use cryptos amongst themselves, Armstrong explained.

The Crypto Philanthropists

Over the years, crypto investors have come to be associated with flashy cars and fancy lifestyles as they seek to show off their wealth. This is, however, not representative of the entire community, according to Armstrong, who insists that there are many in the community who wish to use the wealth accrued to further the crypto agenda and help those in need. In a blog post, he commended those making efforts to share their wealth with the less fortunate, such as Ripple’s recent donation of $29 million to public schools and the now-defunct Pineapple Fund. GiveCrypto will be a culmination of all these efforts.

The charity will kick off with direct-cash transfers to people in need. These transfers will be done through cryptos, as they are more affordable – especially when sending small amounts – and they can be done in real time. With corruption and misappropriation being among the most common challenges facing most charities, the use of cryptos will ensure that those in need get what is meant for them.

Once recipients get those funds, they’ll have three options. The first and the most likely – especially at the beginning – is converting the cryptos to local currencies for everyday use. This will spur the growth of local exchanges as the service becomes increasingly crucial. The second will be to hold the cryptos for speculative purposes. The third option will be to use the cryptos for retail purposes, an outcome which Armstrong hopes will spark the growth of cryptos in developing nations. With a substantial number of local people owning cryptos, they will increasingly transact it amongst themselves instead of first converting it to fiat money.

GiveCrypto intends to raise an initial $10 million for the cause. It has already raised $3.5 million, with Armstrong personally donating $1 million. The organization will then begin to distribute the funds through its ambassadors. These are volunteers from local communities whom the charity will entrust with its funds. The initial phase will involve assessing the usefulness of the model, how local communities use the funds, and how best to distribute the funds in the future.

Armstrong is very optimistic, and in the next two years, he targets an ambitious $1 billion fund size. In the long run, he hopes the fund can uplift millions of people from poverty and bring the world a step closer to equality which, according to him, was Satoshi Nakamoto’s ultimate goal.

GiveCrypto was an idea Armstrong has previously expressed interest in, having written a blog post about it in January. He proposed a charity which would operate just like GiveDirectly.org, only that it would use cryptos instead. Such a venture would accelerate the rate of growth of local economies as well as the real-world utility of cryptos.

Crypto markets see substantial growth after Bitcoin suffered two dips below $6,000 this week – the coin is now trading at around $6,400

Facebook has made changes to its policies concerning cryptocurrency. Rob Leathern, Product Management Director for the popular social media site, recently noted, “In January we announced a new policy to prohibit ads that promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices such as binary options, initial coin offerings, and cryptocurrency.”

Leathern went on to say, “At the time we also made clear that this policy was intentionally broad while we work to better detect deceptive and misleading advertising practices.” This meant that the recent policy change was a reversal, but not a full reversal. That’s because Facebook still won’t be allowing advertisements for binary options and initial coin offerings, but it will allow ads for the various cryptocurrencies that exist.

Recently, Facebook revealed its guidelines for those wanting to advertise cryptocurrency. Potential advertisers must fill out a form and apply for the privilege of using the site to promote their tokens. Decisions on eligibility rest solely in the hands of Facebook, and advertising must comply with all applicable terms and policies. The application process requires one to supply quite a lot of information, and it seems like Facebook is certainly doing its due diligence in vetting the crypto ads that will soon be appearing, as the process seems fairly extensive.

Since unscrupulous people sometimes run initial coin offering campaigns, it is possible that these types of ads will never be appearing on Facebook. Unfortunately, ICOs are still kind of in a shady area of the space, and the social media site doesn’t want to risk becoming part of a rip-off, especially after its recent bad press involving the sharing of information with a company with questionable motives.

However, it has been said that Facebook could be gearing up to offer its own cryptocurrency in the near future, and that is quite possibly the motivation for the sudden change of heart. David Marcus, the longstanding head of the Messenger app, is currently looking into blockchain technology to see how it could help improve Facebook generally.

Facebook’s ban on cryptocurrency was echoed by Google soon after it was announced in January, and one has to wonder if a shift in policy isn’t far behind for it as well. This could indeed open up some doors and get a broader range of people interested in getting into these markets because Facebook has such a reach worldwide, and if Google gets on board, it will open those doors even wider.

But it does seem a little odd that Facebook took these six months to make this decision, especially since the decision appears to be connected to its own attempts to use blockchain technology and possibly create its own coins. For them to come back once they’ve had a good head start and reverse this particular policy makes it seem like there is definitely some kind of agenda in place.

If things were so illegitimate back in January, what has changed to make Facebook modify its position about the space? One has to wonder, but what we do know is that Facebook is another large company which seems to want a piece of the cryptocurrency pie, and this is good news for everyone looking for that next big upturn.

Line, the most widely utilized messaging application in Japan with over 200 million active monthly users, is attempting to establish dominance over the blockchain and crypto sector with various ventures including a cryptocurrency exchange and a decentralized application (dapp) platform.

Crypto Exchange

On June 28, NewsBTC reported that Line has finalized its plans to launch a cryptocurrency exchange by July of this year. Based in Singapore, BitBox, a digital asset exchange developed and operated by Line, will run as a complete cryptocurrency exchange independent of the main messaging platform supporting 30 cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Ripple.

The Line team said in an official statement that initially, the exchange will not provide cryptocurrency-to-fiat trading support. If Line would have had established its trading platform in Japan, by obtaining a license from the Financial Services Agency (FSA), it could have been able to add fiat trading pairs.

The decision of the company to launch its exchange in Singapore complicated the process of integrating fiat currencies and acquiring support from local financial institutions. The team explained:

“Cryptocurrency exchange BITBOX is launching as part of LINE’s financial services business, providing services globally except in Japan and the U.S. 30 or more cryptocurrencies can be exchanged in BITBOX, and it will support 15 languages excluding Japanese. BITBOX only allows the exchange of cryptocurrencies, and does not accept exchange between fiat money and cryptocurrencies.”

Line emphasized that its trading platform will focus on improving security measures and internal management systems to prevent large-scale hacking attacks and security breaches as seen in the case of Coincheck’s $500 million hack in May. Line said that it has developed a secure system to handle demand for digital assets from its 200 million users,

Following Dapp Initiative

In early May, Line secured a strategic partnership with ICON, a blockchain project based in South Korea valued at over $600 million, to facilitate the demand for blockchain-related products and decentralized applications from conglomerates and enterprises.

The ICON team stated that Line recognized the potential of the blockchain and the inevitable mainstream adoption of digital assets in the long-term. ICON said:

“At current low adoption level, this access and impact would benefit ICON and the blockchain industry in a powerful way. We believe partnerships with players like LINE with such reach and scale are absolutely necessary for a wider and faster blockchain adoption. This is something we’ve all been waiting to see and we are glad to be the one make this happen.”

As of current, Line is focusing its resources on two main initiatives: its crypto exchange and decentralized application platform. In the long run, Line is planning to deploy decentralized applications that can be utilized by hundreds of millions of users on a day to day basis on public blockchain protocols like ICON and Ethereum, while seamlessly trading digital assets on a secure platform.

The commitment of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate to the cryptocurrency sector amidst the third worst correction in the history of the market can be considered as an optimistic indicator of mid to long-term recovery.

The post How Line, Japan’s Biggest Messaging App, is Going All Out on Crypto appeared first on NewsBTC.

A new study by Kaspersky Lab has found that incidents of cryptocurrency related ransomware declined 30% since 2016 from 2.58 million to 1.81 million, while simultaneously cryptocurrency mining malware incidents have risen 44.5% from 1.9 million to 2.74 million. Kaspersky Lab suspects that there is a direct causation between these statistics, they say cybercriminals have turned their backs on ransomware and are embracing cryptocurrency mining. This is because cryptocurrency mining malware supplies botnet masters with a consistent long-term income, as opposed to one-off rewards from ransomware that are much less frequent and come with much higher legal risk.

The main reason crypto mining malware is overtaking ransomware is because Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices have gone up 1,000% since last year. This price increase has made it possible for hackers to make an easy living off a crypto mining malware botnet. Now they can infect 10 times fewer computers and make the same profits.

Cryptocurrency mining malware harnesses the processing power of an infected computer to generate cryptocurrency via the proof of work (PoW) algorithm. While mining cryptocurrency with a CPU or GPU is mostly obsolete at this point, it can be very profitable for botnet masters who are mining with hundreds or thousands of computers at once and not paying for electricity. All they have to do is create a script that uploads a cryptocurrency miner to a computer and sends the profits to a cryptocurrency address they control, and then spread the file. Often they spoof files to look like movies or popular software and put them on peer to peer torrent sites. When a user downloads the spoofed file nothing happens from their perspective, but the miner downloads in the background.

The unfortunate side effect of crypto mining malware is that a computer’s fan will tend to be on all the time, causing lots of noise, and even with constant fan usage, the computer can still overheat, shortening its lifespan. Also, an infected computer will use much more electricity than normal, directly causing loss of money for the victim, although probably not enough of a difference to notice on the bill.

All things considered though, crypto mining malware is not as bad as ransomware. A keen computer user can simply monitor the running processes on their computer to spot the mining malware and then delete it. Quite the contrary, ransomware seizes up the entire computer, and in the best case scenario, a user has to wipe the whole computer clean. In the worst case scenario, if they need their files, they have to actually pay the ransom to unlock their computer. Hackers design crypto mining malware so it runs quietly in the background, they want their victims to be able to use their computers smoothly so the mining malware stays running long term.

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter at @BitcoinNewsCom

Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com at https://t.me/bconews

Image Source: Pixabay

The post Crypto Mining Malware on the Rise as Ransomware Declines appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Subsidiary of Russian payment service provider Qiwi has launched the first crypto investment bank in the country to manage ICOs, according to local reports

The future of decentralization is increasingly being touted as an interconnected network of services focused on interoperability of services. This future is what an enterprising alliance of blockchain startup is set to usher in. INGOT Coin has partnered with several blockchain companies to create a unified front dedicated to furthering the growth of blockchain-based innovation. Taking its name from a Japanese word capturing the effect of sunlight streaming through leaves, Komorebi, the alliance comprises of GMEX-Group, BolttCoin, Modern Finance Chain (MFChain), SwachhCoin, Black.Insure, PlaceToRent (PTRT), Bineuro and Stella. The alliance is set to offer the crypto community a single ecosystem for token sales and services, allowing the community to enjoy a wide range of discounts and other privileges across platforms.

Unifying Development and Accessibility

With the alliance, INGOT Coin aims to address the fragmented nature of the blockchain industry and the inefficiency of current development.

Hirander Misra, Chairman, and CEO of GMEX Group commented:

“We are entering an era where the value of individual Blockchain enabled ecosystems combining through joint ventures will lead to a new paradigm of Token Augmenting Partnerships (TAP) creating a network effect, which will propagate to create greater value.”

Komorebi believes that the a unified ecosystem for the crypto community is critical to the next stage of development for the industry. By establishing a platform where the community can access and use all their facilities simultaneously, users can avail themselves of different benefits within the blockchain industry and diversify their assets. Komorebi brings together different enterprising  token generation events from different industries including insurance, health, real estate, financial services, and E-commerce. Instead of a singular benefit from token sale event, the platform is now affording the community compound advantages across different industries, enabling them to diversify the portfolio at no extra cost.

Ahmed Khawanky, CMO of INGOT Coin stated:

“As of now, this does not exist in the Crypto markets, financial markets or in any market. Joining one TGE will provide you with innovative services, eventually, but even at this point the services are limited”

Working alongside other blockchain companies,  INGOT Coin will be aiding the development of the alliance by facilitating access to state-of-the-art technology, providing business expertise, and further enabling industry connectivity & operational excellence. Alliance members will work together for the common good of the community and the industry, creating a frictionless and easy-to-use platform for real-time access to tokens and their utilities.

About INGOT Coin

INGOT Coin is creating an interconnected community built on trust and cooperation for a all encompassing financial ecosystem. The platform aims to place financial freedom in the hands of the community through cutting-edge solutions built on blockchain technology for disintermediated and decentralized exchange of values globally.

For more Information, visit the website at –  https://www.ingotcoin.io/ BitcoinNews.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bitcoinnewscom

Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com at https://t.me/bconews

Image Courtesy: INGOT COIN

The post Blockchain Startups Unite to Launch a Unified Platform for Diverse & Numerous Utilities; Komorebi Alliance appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Union Square Ventures, a New York-based venture capital firm that oversees a billion dollars in capital, has revealed that it is investing in cryptocurrency and major digital assets like bitcoin as long-term investments.

Winning Blockchain Will be Worth Many Trillions

Founded and operated by Fred Wilson, a prominent venture capital investor known for his early investments in multi-billion dollar companies Twitter, Tumblr, Zynga, Etsy, and Coinbase, Union Square Ventures has quickly become a leading investment firm within the blockchain sector and technology industry within the past decade.

Within a decade, the company has built a valuable portfolio of startups valued at several billion dollars such as world’s largest online developer community Stackoverflow, Foursquare, audio sharing platform Soundcloud, the world’s biggest crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, and the global cryptocurrency market’s largest exchange and brokerage Coinbase.

This week, in an interview with CNBC, Albert Wegner, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, said that USV has allocated a significant portion of its capital into the cryptocurrency market as a long-term investment and it intends to continue investing in both emerging cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

But, Wenger said that the venture capital firm is not ready to create a major fund dedicated to the cryptocurrency market unlike Andreessen Horowitz, another leading VC firm that created a $300 million fund committed to the cryptocurrency sector.

“We’re not planning to do it,” said Wenger, referring to the creation of a separate and independent fund for the cryptocurrency sector. “We see a lot of upside to keeping it under the same roof.”

Wenger added that whichever cryptocurrency that survives and weathers large bubbles that will emerge in the future will be worth several trillions of dollars.

“Investors are rationally pouring a lot of money into this sector, because I think people are seeing the winning blockchain here might be worth a trillion, or a couple of trillion dollars. It’s not at all crazy to think that. Certainly, for any one particular project there’s an extremely high chance it won’t work. As a result, if it works, the rewards will be very high.”

Wenger is a Bitcoin Holder But Says Holding Only Bitcoin Isn’t Recommended

Wenger has been an early investor in bitcoin for several years and has extensively observed the cryptocurrency market over the past few years. He emphasized that investors should not only hold bitcoin and hope it to remain dominant, especially of investors have a significant share of their life savings in bitcoin.

“I don’t think you should be in the space and say ‘I’m going to only hold bitcoin. At the moment, this whole space is a high risk space and I don’t think anybody should be investing all of their life savings.”

The best investment strategy to utilize in a high volatile market that is still at its infancy is to diversify investments in various cryptocurrencies that have active developer communities and user activity, rather than allocating all of the life savings into a single digital asset.

The post One of the Biggest VC Firms Says Cryptocurrency Can be Worth Trillions of Dollars appeared first on NewsBTC.

A Hong Kong-based venture capital firm is placing a major bet that tZero, a security token exchange owned by e-commerce company Overstock, will be the future of tokenization.   

Visual Capitalist, a digital media company, has put together a report highlighting how investors interact with digital currencies and what might be their future aspirations for the space.

Qualitative and Quantitative data,  features of news reporting that informs about how people feel about, and use of digital currency in the financial sector, is increasingly being referred to in the industry as a way of measuring which direction the sector is moving in the light of digital currencies’ fluctuating fortunes.

The Visual Capitalist analysis focusses on the thinking behind the statistics rather than simple numbers of participants adopting, selling or hoarding cryptocurrency.

According to the firm, it’s reported that 41% of those investing in Bitcoin specifically, do so as they perceive it as a world-changing technology. Consequently, these respondents see cryptocurrencies having a major role in the future and about 22% of them are holding bitcoins long term. Over 15% have had friends or family members suggesting or recommending it to them, whereas only a few (8%) simply see it as a utilitarian tool for purchases rather than cash, or credit cards. Another 14% see prices going high, offering investors a healthy return on investments, compared to banks.

In this particular report, it is suggested that over 60% of investors started investing in 2017. 56% of holders are planning further investments within a year.

Another report from March 2018, published by Huobi, claims that almost 80% of investors see a 30% increase in portfolios over the next three years, perhaps a refreshing thought for investors monitoring the market downtrend this year to July.

A Lenedu poll from November 2017 agreed that Bitcoin is for investing long-term, suggesting that investors are for holding rather than short-term commitment. A one to two-year hold seemed the most popular option at 40% with significantly smaller numbers holding for over 10 years or selling in the next 12 months.

As has been seen recently, readers, investors or would-be-investors are affected by media reports and consequently, this results in a fall in markets. Individual coins are affected in the same way. Today’s Bitcoin price, at the time of writing, is $6446 (CoinMarketcap) which demonstrates a bullish shift from recent falling prices of the past week.

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter at @BitcoinNewsCom

Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com at https://t.me/bconews

Image Source:Pixabay

The post Almost Half of Investors See Bitcoin as World Changing Technology appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

At the Japan Blockchain Conference held on June 27, the biggest cryptocurrency and blockchain conference in Japan, Yoshitaka Kitao, the chairman of SBI Holdings and CEO of SBI Group, expressed his optimism towards the long-term growth of the Ripple blockchain network.

XRP as Global Standard Currency

According to a local cryptocurrency analyst CryptoEri, Kitao stated that XRP, the native cryptocurrency of the Ripple blockchain network, significantly optimizes the global financial system and has the potential to evolve into the global standard of cryptocurrency and money.

“Mr Kitao, CEO of SBI Holdings, just a few minutes ago, spoke at Keynote in Tokyo Blockchain. He believes XRP will be the global standard. Mr Kitao added, ‘using XRP can create a more efficient world,’” CryptoEri reported.

The Japan Blockchain Conference is the largest conference in Japan that focuses on the discussion of the cryptocurrency market, including projects, emerging solutions, regulation, growth, and investment. The conference, which was attended by more than 10,000 individuals, partnered with some of the most influential financial conglomerates such as SBI Group and Nasdaq, featuring Ethereum and Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson and Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver as two of many other high profile entrepreneurs in the blockchain sector.

At the conference, Yoshitaka Kitao, who has overseen the second biggest bank in Japan since 2014, said that XRP has already created a more efficient ecosystem and platform for banks to use in settling cross-border payments with lower fees and shorter processing periods.

Reason Behind Optimism Towards Ripple

In January 2016, prior to the massive rally of XRP that led its market valuation to surpass $50 billion and the formation of an active community, SBI Holdings demonstrated its confidence in the potential of Ripple to target the traditional finance industry with blockchain-related products by initiating in a multinational deal, ahead of any other bank in Asia and the US.

At the time, Kitao, the chairman and CEO of SBI Holdings, said that XRP is the only company with “battle-tested” solutions that can optimize bank transactions and operations.

“Surveying the market, Ripple was the only company that has delivered battle-tested enterprise solutions and global bank customer traction, including commercial deals with top banks already signed in Asia Pacific. Distributed financial technology is undoubtedly transforming financial infrastructure and we’re excited to drive its adoption throughout Asia,” Kitao said more than two years ago.

Since then, SBI Holdings has led local banks and financial institutions in South Korea including Kookmin and Shinhan, the country’s two largest commercial banks, to deploy Ripple and to utilize the Ripple blockchain network to conduct cross-border transactions.

In March, NewsBTC previously reported that Woori, the third largest bank in South Korea, hinted full integration of XRP after testing Ripple’s blockchain-related solutions throughout late 2017 and early 2018.

“The South Korean bank already completed phase two of its Ripple trials, having completed phase one of Ripple payment settlement in January. Woori spokesperson told Chosun that the bank remains highly optimistic in using the Ripple network to process remittance in the long-term,” NewsBTC reported.

The optimism towards the Ripple blockchain protocol and its native token XRP from Kitao originate from the enthusiastic approach of both Japanese and South Korean banks in integrating various Ripple solutions like xRapid and xCurrent that are capable of improving the liquidity of banking systems.

The post Chairman of Major Japanese Bank Says Ripple Can be the Global Standard of Money appeared first on NewsBTC.

Millennial Living in 2018: Insights for the UK ‘Build-to-Rent’ Sector, a study in conjunction with FTI Consulting, commemorates real estate group Get Living’s 5th anniversary. Focusing on millennials, it found significant portions turning away from traditional stores of value, such as property and home ownership, in favor of crypto assets.  

Also read: Bitlicense Should be Smashed, Candidate for New York Governor Urges

Millennials Turning from Traditional Investments and Toward Crypto

“For Millennials the soaring performance of Bitcoin – followed by an almost equally profound correction – holds more intrigue than the prospect of steady growth in house prices,” Get Living concludes. “This translated to 27% of male Millennials polled believing Bitcoin represents a better investment than property.”

Is this age group “in the vanguard of the new Sharing Society, where people are less interested in following in the footsteps of their home-owning parents and would rather make a fortune from Bitcoin?” asked build-to-rent advocates Get Living. The group “sought to answer these questions and a host of others about Millennials’ lifestyles in ground-breaking research carried out in cities across the UK in March and April 2018.”

That over a quarter of UK males polled, in the 3,065 universe of 21 to 35-year-olds, see crypto as favorable comports nicely with previous studies. In late March of this year, for example, “The Student Loan Report teamed with Pollfish to survey 1,000 current university students with related loan debt, asking one question: Have you ever used student loan money to invest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin?” these pages explained. The survey “found that 21.2 percent of current college students with student loan debt have used financial aid money to fund a cryptocurrency investment.” That study itself confirmed a late 2017 Harris Poll, finding that 27% of all millennials preferred bitcoin core (BTC) to traditional stock and bonds.  

“The rollercoaster ride in value for Bitcoin has excited many Millennials, with one in five seeing it as an appealing investment proposition compared with relatively slow-moving property values,” Get Living noted. And whatever the actual macroeconomic truth of the matter, a bare majority still hold to legacy investments such as real estate. As to whether still more males, and of course their female counterparts, will continue to move into crypto (and whether this will be for the long term) is anyone’s guess and well beyond the present study’s scope.

Will more millennials move into crypto? Let us know in the comments. 

Images via the Pixabay.

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 Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

The post 27% of England’s Male Millennials Say Bitcoin Better Investment Than Property appeared first on Bitcoin News.