Day: July 1, 2018

NullTX is offering our readers FREE access to premium blockchain elearning courses from Devslopes over the next few weeks. The Devslopes team currently runs a leading developer education platform with 300,000+ active students. Devslopes is producing high quality premium developer education focused primarily on blockchain. There is a massive shortage of blockchain developer training resources and the Devslopes is filling this void in the marketplace.

There are 7,913 job postings on LinkedIn for blockchain developers globally. And this number will grow massively over the next several years.

The time is now to learn cutting edge training from Devslopes’ world-class blockchain developers.

Here is some more info about this course:

Many consider NEM to be a sleeping giant. The high performance Blockchain has a unified vision and community behind it with a very developer friendly Blockchain platform. They provide a top notch platform to manage almost any kind of asset: cryptocurrencies, supply chains, notarizations, ownership records etc. From Dapps, to ICOs, to Fintech, NEM has it all. This program is a comprehensive training on the NEM blockchain. You’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing about NEM to becoming an advanced developer on the NEM blockchain.

What you will learn:

• What is NEM?
• NEM Architecture
• Proof of importance
• Harvesting (mining)
• NEM use cases
• NEM for app developers
• Launching your own cryptocurrency
• NEM for enterprise & fintech
• Public & private NEM blockchains
• Coding an ICO
• Security on the NEM blockchain
• Multisig accounts (smart contracts)
• NEM tooling & testing
• Building Dapps in any programming language
• Architecting production ready products on NEM

Who is this for:

This training program is designed to take developers from beginner to advanced knowledge on developing for the NEM blockchain. If you are considering launching an ICO, creating a Dapp, or creating secure private blockchains for fintech or enterprise you should take this program.

Prerequisites:

To take this training program you will need to have competence in any programming language such as Javascript, Java, C#, Swift, Python, etc. You must own a Mac, PC with Windows 8+ or Linux. Beginner Blockchain & Architecture is a recommended pre-requisite.

Here are the redemption instructions:

1. Go to this link: https://www.devslopes.com/blockchain/
2. Click “Buy Now” on your course
3. Enter the code: NEM_COURSE_06PBLF
4. Create a Devslopes account and click “Submit”
5. Scroll down the page
6. Enter the redemption code below in the “Coupon Code (Optional)” field
7. Agree to the “Terms of Use”
8. Click “Buy Now”

Devslopes just launched their own token, Cache. Cache is a cryptocurrency that will empower developers to easily work with blockchain technology and create and manage digital assets with ease. The cryptocurrency, built upon the NEM blockchain, will power the Blockstart and Cacheout platforms.

Blockstart allows developers and businesses to deploy their own blockchain in minutes, create digital assets in one click, set up transaction management systems, and interface with their blockchain through easy-to-use SDKs for iOS, Android, and Unity. An analytics dashboard will allow users to view network status, transactions, fees collected, active users, active nodes, and more.

Developers and low-budget startups have a lot of the same issues that larger businesses might have in that choosing the right blockchain is very difficult, and then learning how to develop blockchain applications is quite complex. Developers and startups also need low-cost on demand blockchain services so they can figure out their monetization models as they grow their apps and companies. The Blockstart public blockchain is the perfect solution for these developers and startups. Developers will create domains to manage their projects. Domains are similar to web domains in that they are unique to the entire blockchain network. Developers can then create assets and cryptocurrencies within that domain. Developers pay fees to launch new domains, assets, and currencies. All fees are paid in Cache. As Developers onboard users into their apps, those users will make transactions with the developer’s assets and cryptocurrencies. All end-user transactions also have associated fees in Cache. Developers can elect to pay for their user’s fees for a seamless experience, or they can have the users pay Cache in association with the developer’s assets/currencies. Developers can also elect to use Cache as their primary token within their applications and for their users

Cacheout will be a currency-backed regulated economy where developers can ask and answer questions. Users will be able to post a question and a bounty using Cache tokens (CHE). The user along with the community chooses the best answer and the bounty is awarded automatically.

The token sale will last until August 31, with the goal of raising $10 million.

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of NullTX. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

The company behind Kakao, the most popular messaging app in South Korea, has suggested it will do a private placement next month to raise money for a crypto platform. The platform will be separate from the messaging app due to concerns over the lack of ICO regulations, Bloomberg reported on June 28.

Ground X to Seek Business Alliances

A subsidiary of Kakao, Ground X Corp is a blockchain initiative based in Tokyo aimed at helping the company to succeed outside of South Korea. CEO Jason Han said, in an interview, that the company is looking at making capital and business alliances with consumer-service companies. They will aim for companies that have internet or mobile services that could be integrated with blockchain technology.

Ground X was set up in March 2018 following the boom in crypto prices and at the start of the recent bear market. They aim to have a test version by September 2018 and launch the product by the end of the year. Han said he wants to roll out a product that will be more practical as existing products and decentralized applications (dApps) are not very user-friendly. Han said:

“The biggest problem with blockchain right now is that there isn’t a single service that an average person would use. Our services are going to be more practical. We’re going to create a service that people can use without having to learn the language of crypto.”

The product will provide services similar to Steemit which is a popular blockchain-based blog site. Users up-vote posts which get paid out to the content providers in STEEM. Han said that services that reward users for good content works well with blockchain technology.

Kakao to Expand Beyond Korea

Kakao is a $7.6 billion company with 50 million monthly users that are mostly based in South Korea. They have recently managed to expand to Japan with manga-app Piccoma. According to Bloomberg, other offerings failed in trying to crack other markets and Ground X was set up to help achieve this goal.

Ground X is also based in Japan due to uncertainty over crypto regulations. Even though South Korea’s citizens are strong advocates of blockchain technology, it still has a ban on ICOs. Considering the amount of money raised in ICOs so far this year, it’s easy to see why this is a priority for a new project, especially against so much competition.

“We aren’t late here. We know we’re not frontrunners of blockchain technology. But the industry is still developing,” Han said.

For the blogging market, Ground X will have pre-existing competition in terms of Steemit which is already widely used. If they go down the messaging route, they are up against Telegram who cancelled their ICO after raising nearly $2 billion in private fundraising. In development is also Kin, operated by messaging app KIK which had 300 million users by 2016.

Image from Shutterstock

The post Korean Messaging App Kakao to Raise Funds for Crypto Move appeared first on NewsBTC.

A built-from-scratch blockchain aiming to enable private contracts between users has officially entered testing. 

The small town of Zug just outside of Zurich with a population of under 30,000 has become known as Europe’s crypto haven as the region embraces increasingly decentralized model, writes Business Insider.

Multinationals have been attracted to the town with its low 14% cooperation tax and it now attracts pharmaceutical and medical companies such as Shire, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson.

The town is a home for Crypto Valley Labs, a coworking space for Switzerland’s many start-ups which was opened at the beginning of the year with 40 paying members. Startup members often use the space when in town rather than work permanently from there. The Labs are due to expand soon, taking in another two-floors due to swelling business.

A spokesperson for Shapeshift, a fintech company based in the town, was attracted to Zug back in 2014 due to its crypto friendly position at a time when governments were generally anti-crypto due to the Mt Cox collapse and the Dark Net Bitcoin connection:

“We knew that crypto was a very new thing and various regulators might view it in different ways,” he said. “We wanted to find an environment where we thought it would generally be friendly. We identified Zug, and Switzerland in general, as a place that was open to this type of innovation… “

Such views are shared by many exchanges and companies now based in Zug, but it is commonly accepted that Nikolas Nikolajsen of Credit Suisse was a main driver of Zug becoming the crypto friendly space that it has become today.

Danish-born Nikolajsen, who set up the crypto service company Bitcoin Suisse in 2013, is regarded as the town’s cryptocurrency pioneer. Current BS CEO Arthur Vayloyan maintains that “Many knowledgeable people today know their thing because they were privileged to have [Niklas] as an initiator.”

“The whole starting point was the Ethereum Foundation,” Oliver Bussmann, president of the Crypto Valley Association, told Business Insider. “They decided to set up the foundation here and that triggered the set up of a new ecosystem — law firms, tax, accounting, smart contract evolvement firms, startups, universities.”

The Crypto Valley Association was set up at the beginning of 2017 to bring all of Zug’s crypto parties in tandem, forming the name from the topography surrounding the town combined with California tech centre, Silicon Valley.

Both Shapeshift and Bitcoin Suisse were in agreement, suggesting that the Swiss model should replicated everywhere,  as Vayloyan put it:

“Zug is definitely a great place to do business because you have this network, you have the government who supports it. You sense it, you sense that there is support in the crypto sphere. They are playing it very well.”

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The post Zug: The Swiss Model of a Crypto Friendly Society appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Facebook has revised its ban on crypto-related advertising — although the revised policy is far from a reversal. Controversial at first, Facebook’s January ad ban actually proved inconsequential to the wider crypto ecosystem — and may have actually been beneficial

Blockchain has announced that they are launching an institutional investment platform named Blockchain Principal Strategies. The CEO and Co-Founder of Blockchain, Peter Smith, says “We are thrilled to debut Blockchain Principal Strategies, an institutional grade platform customized for institutions, family offices, and individual investors. BPS provides clients the opportunity to invest in digital assets with the same peace of mind and security that has become synonymous with the Blockchain name”.

Luxembourg-based Blockchain is the most widely used Bitcoin wallet service, and also a popular source for Bitcoin network statistics like hash rate and transaction frequency. Blockchain has been a big player in the Bitcoin field since the early days. Having launched in 2011, they have recently expanded into facilitating the buying and selling of Bitcoin, and now they are one of the first cryptocurrency companies to expand into Bitcoin institutional investment.

Blockchain Principal Strategies will offer an over the counter (OTC) trading desk for large cryptocurrency trades. Members of the Blockchain OTC team include people from major institutional investment firms Goldman Sacks, JP Morgan, and UBS, and will combine liquidity from across the cryptocurrency markets for optimal trades.

Additionally, Blockchain Principal Strategies will offer equity investments in cryptocurrency companies as well as early access to reputable initial coin offerings (ICOs). Cryptocurrency market research from the Blockchain research team will be built into the platform to help investors make informed decisions.

According to research by Willis Towers Watson, institutional investment funds control at least USD 131 trillion of assets. If even a small percentage of this is invested into Bitcoin and cryptocurrency it could cause a massive price rally, since the Bitcoin market cap is only USD 108 billion.

Several cryptocurrency experts have been saying that Bitcoin will experience a massive rally as institutional investors jump into the cryptocurrency market and that the creation of fully regulated cryptocurrency custodians has broken down the final barrier for institutional investment.

The launch of an institutional investment platform by Blockchain, one of the most reputable Bitcoin companies in the world, could be a harbinger that a big wave of institutional capital is about to be injected into the cryptocurrency markets. Blockchain says they will be rolling out additional institutional investment products throughout summer 2018.

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The post Blockchain to Launch an Institutional Investment Platform appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

It’s no secret that EOS is a promising project but it isn’t short of drama. After several voting issues, RAM speculation dominates headlines and prohibiting DApp implementation because RAM is expensive. As this happens, Litecoin and Stellar Lumens (LTC) are finding support. In my view, IOTA looks promising and as it prints a double bottom in the daily chart, odds are we might see gains in the coming days.

Lets’ have a look at these charts:

EOS Technical Analysis

EOS Daily Chart by Trading View

The odds are tipped negatively against users planning on using the EOSIO blockchain to run a DApp or execute a smart contract. It’s all about RAM, a network level resource that’s the center of speculation.  It’s emerging that Block Producers are collaborating to systematically hike the prices of RAM at the expense of genuine network users.

The prices of #EOS ram is now more than 1000x the server-ram-market-price*42. Utilization is negligible, people are playing Lambo games on it. Block Producers claim they need more data, before the add more (really?!?). Dapp devs are left on the cold. Let's fix this asap. pic.twitter.com/vP7Lqd5VoS

— ZeroPass (@zeropassio) June 28, 2018

For a lack of better words, some redditors are calling this “insider trading”. It smells like one and why not? Super node centralization enables them to determine the amount of RAM in circulation and by extension price.

And it doesn’t matter your argument. Common sense dictates that the amount of RAM in supply is irrelevant, BPs can quickly speculate on what the demand of RAM would be in the future and profit from that insider knowledge, at common user expense. As it stands, 0.11 EOS are needed to purchase 1kb of RAM.

As DApp get hurt because of RAM speculation and hoarding, EOS is relatively stable. It found support at $7 and might find its way up. The thing is: we still are bearish on EOS regardless of this “across the board recovery” until we see prices edge strongly above $9. That’s our immediate resistance line. After that, my suggestion would be to buy on dips as traders align themselves with a bull break out pattern.

Litecoin (LTC) Technical Analysis

Litecoin Daily Chart by Trading View

The Winklevoss Twins are important in the blockchain ecosystem and have been in this cycle for a while now. In their view, Bitcoin has the portability property that makes this “digital Gold better than gold”. Both share the fungibility and scarcity elements that make them so valuable. Unlike Bitcoin, they think Litecoin is but a test-net, a lab for Bitcoin and developers behind Litecoin didn’t risk anything big. That’s why it has a relatively low market cap.

Winklevoss Twins#Bitcoin could can be the market capitalization similar to that of gold, which is currently valued at $7 trillion. Bitcoin, has a “potential appreciation of 30 to 40 times,” which would set the Bitcoin price above $320,000 market ap of
at least $4 trillion $btc

— Crypto Exeprt (@CryptoBest) June 30, 2018

CoinBase daily chart shows that LTC did found support at around $70 with a nice confirmation of bullish pockets on June 29. It’s towing in perfectly with BTC prices. Overly, there is an optimism wave but I maintain that sellers are in charge. That’s until after we see buyers pushing prices above $90 or more safely above June 22 highs at $100 confirming that indeed there have been a shift of momentum and buyers are in charge.

That’s a reserved approach and it isn’t limiting for buyers keen of entering in earlier and risking less. In that case they should buy at current spot rates with stops at $70 and aim for $110 as their immediate buy targets. After all, June 29 volumes were high relative to the past 10 trading volumes.

Stellar Lumens (XLM) Technical Analysis

Stellar Lumens Daily Chart by Trading View

Of all the coins, Stellar Lumens prices seem to be bottoming out. For example, in the last seven days, it’s up three percent as XLM buyers begin reversing May-June losses. In my view, we might end up seeing the completion of a W-formation and a double bottom if there are price appreciations above 25 cents. Once that happen, momentum would have switched and I suggest buying on retracements on lower time frames. Before them, let’s take a neutral approach and exit shorts.

Tron (TRX) Technical Analysis

Tron Daily Chart by Trading View

The Tron foundation and Justin Sun are doing everything they can to prop TRX prices. Since launch, 50 billion TRX coins have now been burnt. Encouragingly, we are yet to see network technical hitches and things like those leading to network halting. The only undoing is that most TRX coins are held by exchanges-especially Binance which is intentionally locking coins for security purposes. This is surely impeding Super Representatives election which is nevertheless progressing smoothly.

49,490,749,752.120578 #TRX ERC20 token were burnt by #TRON Foundation. https://t.co/2iF859kHyP

— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) June 30, 2018

On the charts, TRX attempts to edge past 4 cents were futile and as such, we remain bearish until after that happens. Remember, that’s the only way buyers would announce themselves in an otherwise bearish market. Should prices slide below June 29 lows at around 3.3 cents, then sellers should search for pull backs in lower time frames and sell with a targets at 2.5 cents. Stops would be at 4 cents.

IOTA (IOT) Technical Analysis

IOTA Daily Chart by Trading View

After yesterday’s price action and bounce of April lows, it looks like we now have a nice double bottom. Note that bulls are following though the last three days bullish candlestick with respectable trade volumes.

Ideally, we would want to see a complete reversal of June 22 bearish engulfing pattern but then that means buyers must edge above $1.3 to validate that stand. That’s what I would suggest but odds are high that hawks might push prices there. Therefore, my trade plan is to buy at current prices with stops at 88 cents and targets at $2 or June highs.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are those of the author and aren’t investment advice. Trading of any form involves risk and so do your due diligence before making a trading decision.

The post EOS Whales Cornering the RAM Market, Driving Prices Up: EOS, Litecoin, Stellar Lumens, Tron and IOTA Technical Analysis appeared first on NewsBTC.

Fernando Alonso, the world’s top Formula One racing driver, is tapping a blockchain-secured platform to safeguard his image rights.

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has just completed a multi-bank testing of bank-to-bank transfers using blockchain.

South Africa’s central bank has been testing the Ethereum based platform Quorum in collaboration with eight banks including SARB, Absa, Capitec, Discovery, Investec, FirstRand, Nedbank, and Standard Bank.

The program, called Project Khoka spread over 14 weeks, conducted tests which replicated transactions normally handled by the South African Multiple Gross Operation Settlement System (SAMOS), rather than handling actual transactions.  The project was aimed at proving that a DLT based program might be able to replicate SAMOS which can handle 70,000 daily transfers in two hours.

Project Khoka successfully used public cloud servers offered by Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services to add power needed for the transaction verifications.  SARB was happy with the outcome of the tests and claimed that the Quorum blockchain handled the transfers with “scalability, resilience, confidentiality, and finality.” The SARB post-test report stated:

“Both the process, as well as the outcome of the project, contribute to the SARB’s goals. The decision was made to assess the use case for DLT in wholesale payments and interbank settlement and thus build on and extend the work done in other parts of the world.”

SARB suggested that more testing would be required before DLT is suitable for such interbank settlements as exhibited in the trial, and if proven satisfactory for bank use would most probably be utilized as a backup system, rather than actually replacing its current system, according to Francois E. Groepe, SARB’s Deputy Governor.

Banks are increasingly testing DLT for interbank settlements around the world, some aiming to use blockchain in order to update outmoded systems. Recently the Bank of England announced that it was rebuilding its Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system to work with DLT. The announcement came after BoE Governor Mark Carney commented that private business and platforms need to be able to work with the bank’s own RTGS system.

RTGS is a system generally used to transfer large volumes of funds between banks.

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The Co-Founder and CEO of BitMEX, Arthur Hayes, says Bitcoin will hit USD 50,000 by the end of the year after possibly bottoming out in the USD 3,000 to USD 5,000 range. He says Bitcoin is just one positive regulatory decision away from a massive rally. That piece of positive news might be a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) being approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Arthur Hayes says a Bitcoin ETF would allow ‘real’ money to enter the Bitcoin market since institutional investors will be able to easily invest in Bitcoin on mainstream stock trading platforms, as opposed to the present day where buying Bitcoin is a completely different process than buying stocks. Cryptocurrency expert Michael Strutton has a similar forecast, saying that when the first Bitcoin ETF is approved by the SEC Bitcoin’s price will hit USD 35,000.

BitMEX is technically the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world with USD 618 billion of trading volume in the last year, and 3 times more liquidity than any other exchange. However BitMEX offers derivatives contracts that represent Bitcoin rather than trading Bitcoin itself, so BitMEX is usually not counted as the top cryptocurrency exchange since they aren’t trading actual bitcoins.

Arthur Hayes says BitMEX’s volume has tripled during the Bitcoin price decline in 2018. BitMEX offers clients up to 100X leverage, facilitating short selling, so BitMEX clients actually make more money when the market is declining. It is possible that the large and persistent amount of short selling on BitMEX could be a contributing factor to Bitcoin’s price decline.

Also, contrary to popular opinion, Arthur Hayes favors volatility, and he says the decrease in volatility as Bitcoin’s price has declined is bad for business. This is probably because BitMEX’s leveraged trading feeds on volatility. In general, it is recognized that less price volatility makes Bitcoin a better currency.

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Most cryptocurrency users have come across the VeChain project. It is an interesting blockchain venture which could introduce a lot of positive changes. There is a related blockchain known as VeChainThor, which is currently undergoing public testing.

The VeChainThor Project

On the surface, it seems VeChainThor will try to boost enterprise adoption of blockchain technology. Offering real-world use cases involving blockchain technology has proven to be somewhat challenging, and the VeChainThor team is confident they have the necessary features and tools to improve this situation.

Under the Hood of VeChainThor

Similar to VeChain, the VeChainThor product is designed to come with its own governance tools. VeChainThor provides a voting process and KYC verification procedures, which are not native to VeChain. Offloading the extra functionality to a different project hooked into the main chain is a smart idea, as it helps reduce Vechain’s overall blockchain bloat.

There is also a feature known as Proof of Authority, or PoA. This consensus algorithm will maintain order among the blockchain nodes, of which 101 are official authority nodes controlled by the whitelist. Every individual node will need to adhere to KYC requirements, as well as to hardware and security standards.

Last but not least, VeChainThor is designed to offer a higher degree of scalability compared to most other blockchains on the market today. Thanks to the PoA algorithm, its maximum transaction throughput is 10,000 TPS. However, the chain will maintain a maximum of 50 TPS due to the current lower transaction volume. In the future, the project will receive cross-chain and sidechain support.

The Road Ahead

Although VeChainThor sounds like an impressive project, there is no guarantee that it will make its way to the commercial world anytime soon. Even so, the team is trying to cater to the needs of enterprises and financial service providers. There’s also a growing focus on IoT solutions, which will become a lot more important to our society as time progresses.