Day: July 8, 2018

The first six months of 2018 have seen nearly three times as much crypto getting stolen than in all of 2017, a new report by CipherTrace has revealed. The FBI has also reported a six-fold increase in the number of crypto-related complaints from 2015 to 2017. Criminals have taken to cryptos in earnest as they seek to use technology to hide their activities, and it has been working out pretty well for them. The report also detailed an intricate web of services that help these criminals launder the stolen crypto through the use of tumblers, mixers and foggers. These services, most of which advertise themselves in plain sight, help them hide the origin and receipt of the stolen tokens.

The Rise of the Crypto Criminal

Money laundering has greatly evolved from the traditional practice invented by Italian mafias and is now done through complex technology. With cryptos being increasingly used for criminal purposes, money laundering services are becoming more prominent and the expanding market for these services has continued to attract more players.

The first step in the crypto money laundering process is layering, the report by the Menlo Park, California-based blockchain security and forensics firm noted. Layering involves moving money to a service that randomly moves it around to obfuscate its owner and makes him or her harder to trace should regulatory agencies snoop around. The more it’s moved around, the harder it is to trace back to the owner. Layering is done through the use of tumblers, mixers, and chain hopping. These services cost criminals 1-3%, a small price to pay to make the stolen cryptos legitimate and untraceable.

Next is the integration phase in which the laundered cryptos are introduced into the mainstream financial system via exchanges. This is a risky process, as most exchanges have measures in place to flag suspicious deposits. However, once this is done, the stolen crypto becomes legitimate and can be sold on exchanges.

The report listed some of the most popular crypto money laundering services, some of which have terminated their services in the wake of regulatory scrutiny. They include BitcoinFog, Helix, CoinMixer, PrivCoin, BitLaunder and BitMixer. Illegal though their services may be, these firms are bold enough to advertise their services on popular platforms, with the report singling out CoinMixer which even has an advertisement on Google AdWords.

The rise of crypto gambling sites has also aided criminals in avoiding scrutiny. These sites have little to no KYC procedures, and users can deposit and withdraw cryptos as they wish. Criminals deposit funds into their gambling accounts, make small bets just to legitimize their accounts, and then withdraw the rest to various accounts. This makes it almost impossible to trace the stolen tokens.

The report concluded by calling for more stringent measures against crypto theft, especially through the use of advanced technology and public awareness. If left unchecked, cryptos will offer a safe haven for international criminals who will launder billions of dollars worth of funds without ever getting apprehended. The demand for sophisticated technology capable of decrypting and “de-anonymizing” crypto transactions is growing by the day, as regulatory authorities recognize the increasing risk that an unchecked crypto ecosystem poses.

The Philippines Central bank is reported to have authorized two of the country’s banks to process conversions between cryptocurrencies and the Philippine peso.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) deputy governor Chuchi G. Fonacier has said that the bank has approved applications from the two exchanges, Virtual Currency Philippines, Inc. and ETranss as platforms according to Business World.

The Philippines now has five authorized crypto exchanges with the addition of the two new platforms with 29 other exchanges still awaiting regulators’ approval to commence trading.

The Bank’s deputy governor has revealed that there may be changes to future crypto exchange regulations which means that the financial regulator waives electronic money issuer (EMI) licenses, suggesting that “There are some refinements. This may entail additional requirement but not automatically an EMI license.”

Cryptocurrency trading in the Philippines is on the rise this year with the trading volume between crypto and the Phillippines peso averaging US$36.74 million per month in the first quarter of 2018.

Not only cryptocurrency but blockchain itself is becoming a fast-growing industry in the South-East Asian country with a regulator-friendly background and the Philippines has long been a magnet to foreign investment, as illustrated by its Special Economic Zones (SEZ).

The Philippines started developing these zones in the mid-1990s in order to promote investment, including foreign direct investment (FDI). Over the past 22 years, Philippine SEZs have become an innovative home for FDI, especially attracting investments in the manufacturing sector. The Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, the US, and, more recently, South Korea, have been the top sources of investment in the Philippine SEZs.

SEC Commissioner Ephyro Luis Amatong recently made comments which will offer those in the industry much hope for the future regarding cryptocurrency trading; views which are slowly become more frequently expressed by government departments and regulators globally:

“The government wants to be proactive in creating rules about cryptocurrency. We want to engage all the stakeholders by asking for your feedback. We don’t want to ban anything just because we don’t understand something…”

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Five universities across three Spanish-speaking countries, Spain, Argentina and Venezuela, are now offering crypto courses, reports one of the crypto-news outlets.

Asia is normally regarded as the world’s cryptocurrency hub with centers, courses, and crypto educational establishments on the rise, where Japan, Thailand and South Korea are leading the way.

However, Asia isn’t the only continent taking steps to educate its crypto communities. There are numerous courses now being run by private schools, companies, and universities across the globe. The new courses for Spanish speakers offer studies in Bitcoin, Ethereum, cryptocurrencies, blockchains, initial coin offerings (ICOs), smart contracts, DAOs, and crypto-economics.

In Europe, Spain’s capital Madrid offers a new venue for crypto studies. The Universidad de Alcalá is not only a world heritage site it is also one of Europe’s oldest universities dating back to 1293. The University of Alcalá is especially renowned in the Spanish-speaking world for its annual presentation of the highly prestigious Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious and remunerative award given for Spanish-language literature.

The university now offers a course entitled “Master in Ethereum, Blockchain Technology and Crypto-Economics,” and promotes the study as being for “professionals, students or those interested in learning about blockchain-based technologies from an integrative perspective of technical, economic, social and legal aspects.”

Not to be outdone, another Madrid university has opened its doors to cryptocurrency enthusiasts and professionals. Universidad Europea Madrid, the European University of Madrid, is a private university with more than 16,000 students. The school offers a 6-month postgraduate diploma in Bitcoin and blockchain which starts in October.

Across the world in South America, struggling Venezuela, along with Argentina have both recently started offering courses. In hyperinflation struck Venezuela, Bitcoin for some is the only way of putting food on the table due to the state of the country’s national currency — bolivar, which is now worth practically nothing.

The Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA) a private non-profit business school with 3 campuses, which offers a 60hr summer course called “Cryptocurrency, blockchain and business in the new economy, opportunities and challenges for management and business.”

In Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA), the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology, is a private university focusing on information technology, business and engineering studies offering a course of 3 months for newcomers to cryptocurrencies:

“It is designed especially for people who start from scratch or with very basic knowledge and who want to learn the reasons, mechanics and disruptive opportunities at a monetary, technological level and as a form of investment that is in the present and future in the world of crypto-economies.”

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The IP market is currently filled with R&D waste and corporations that hold onto vast patent portfolios. This stifles innovation. If it were more transparent and accessible, then it follows that invention would be more forthcoming; Lexit and Loci are two startups developing the tools to do exactly that.

The Current System is Inadequate for the Digital Revolution

It costs a lot to quickly process patent applications, and even more to ensure that what you are filing for is new and unique. The first-to-file system favors large companies to no small degree; just conducting a thorough search of existing patents costs money, while there is no guarantee that months of research will not be swallowed by a system that carries inherent risk.

Studies also show that unknowingly duplicating R&D from other organizations is a common problem, and the exchange of information that would support progress is often difficult or nonexistent. This is not an issue that touches major corporations – the Facebooks and Googles of the world will just buy up vast patent portfolios – and the fact that patent applications can take years to process makes this a minefield for SMEs.

Smaller enterprises would benefit from being able to liquidize unfulfilled IP on a scale not previously possible. Such a transparent system lowers the risk of innovation and, along with the reduced cost for entrepreneurs looking to conduct M&A deals, could serve to incentivize R&D on a scale previously unimagined, thus ushering in a new technology boom.

These are the conditions for tremendous advancements, and they are what we should strive for.

Making it Easier & Cheaper to Search Existing Technologies

Intelligent indexing technology is a good start and the perfect way to raise the value of ideas. Companies of any size would be able to search for existing patents whereas currently there is a cost barrier.

This is an interesting concept further explored by startup Loci through machine learning. The idea is that entrepreneurs will use the service not only to see what has been researched already, but also to predict future areas of innovation using research trends.

This might just be what is needed to help inventors make the next big discovery.

The Opening of a Global Free Market for IP

If Loci makes it possible to browse an open registry, Lexit proposes a platform for the trading of intellectual property, as well as assets and parts of – or entire – companies. The two platforms recently announced a partnership that will see them work together to create this online marketplace – an ‘intellectual property eBay’, so to speak.

It is early days yet, however, and while blockchain technology is surrounded by a buzz of excitement, there are still some ways to go. But that does not mean that this marketplace isn’t something to look forward to.

The problems it seeks to address are a plague on innovation, specifically in the tech space, as copyright and patent laws have not evolved on a par with the rapid growth of software development industries.

Tokenizing IP could help make these problems, quite simply, go away, as transactions recorded on the blockchain are transparent, immutable, and secure. If successful, an online IP marketplace could be the stimulus for R&D on a larger scale than ever before.

Another day, another crypto-related scam. This time it’s in India, where members of the nation’s congress have demanded a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into a “mega Bitcoin scam.” Calls for the probe are led by senior congressional leader Shaktisinh Gohil, who accuses the top leadership of the country’s largest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, of involvement. He’s alleged that the accused used Bitcoin to carry out illegal hawala transactions and attempted to use the country’s Criminal Investigation Department to cover them up.

The Mega Bitcoin Scam

At a press conference, Gohil claimed that the scam involved more than 5,000 crore ($725 million), according to figures he had gathered from the Gujarat police’s criminal investigation department (CID). He accused top BJP leaders of being at the center of the scam, singling out one of the party’s leaders, Nalin Kotadiya, as the mastermind. According to Gohil, the officials used Bitcoin to carry out illegal hawala transactions. Hawala transactions involve the transfer of money through unofficial channels from one destination to another, usually to avoid the mainstream banking process which can be costly and slow. Though quite popular, these transactions are illegal under Indian and Pakistani laws.

Gohil further alleged that the intricate plan had come to the surface after Sailesh Bhatt, a builder based in Surat, was abducted by police officials with the intention of extorting 200 bitcoins. After an investigation was launched, Kotadiya was discovered to have been the mastermind. Gohil accused the police of colluding with the politicians involved in the scam to suppress evidence and instead point the blame at Bhatt. Kotadiya has since fled and hasn’t been traced by the CID.

Abduction and extortion schemes involving Bitcoin have become more frequent since the currency shot up in value last year. In one of the biggest incidents yet, the CEO of a Ukrainian crypto exchange was abducted in December by a masked gang which demanded a bitcoin ransom in exchange for his release. Pavel Lerner, a Russian citizen who is at the helm of the Exmo crypto exchange, was abducted outside his office and forced into a waiting vehicle by gun-wielding, masked men. As covered here, Lerner forked over more than $1 million worth of bitcoin. He was released one and a half days later in a state of shock.

A few weeks later, another gun-wielding gang in the coastal province of Phuket in Thailand abducted a young Russian man with an eye on his stash of bitcoins. The gang took the man to his apartment and forced him to send $100,000 worth of bitcoin to their address at gunpoint.

Criminal gangs haven’t just targeted crypto millionaires, with the shocking kidnapping of a 13-year-old South African boy being among the exceptions. The kidnappers demanded £92,000 in crypto as ransom from the boy’s parents. Unfortunately, the parents were not aware of cryptos and sought help from the police. After a swift police investigation, the boy was found unharmed and returned to his parents.

With cryptos offering relative anonymity, they have become a haven for criminals, and as some cryptos such as Zcash and Monero continue to develop enhanced anonymity features, it’s unlikely that this trend will come to a stop soon.

Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is showing its humanitarian side by donating $1 million to the victims in West Japan that were affected by the heavy rains on 7 July 2018. News outlets in the country have reported a death toll surpassing 70 people, with over 40 still missing.

Binance Makes $1 Million Disaster Relief Donation In West Japan

Digital currency operator Binance, founded by Changpeng Zhao in 2017, has announced a major donation for the sake of the victims of this week’s massive flooding and landslides triggered by torrential rains in western Japan. The death count is now at 72 people and over 40 remain missing while rescue operations continue in disaster-hit areas with 54,000 personnel from the police, fire departments, the Self-Defense Forces and the Japan Coast Guard.

Hiroshima, Ehime, and Okayama were the hardest-hit areas, followed by Yamaguchi, Kyoto, Gifu, Shiga, Osaka, Hyogo, Kochi and Fukuoka prefectures.

Binance, which is on its way to record between $500 million and $1 billion profit in 2018 after reporting $300 million in revenue in the first semester, is helping out the ones in need with its disaster relief donation of $1 million. The operator has also called for its cryptocurrency friends and partners to join in the initiative.

To contribute in cryptocurrency, one can make an anonymous donation by sending ETH or ERC20 tokens directly to the Binance donation address, which can be found on the company’s announcement. A named donation would require an email sent to [email protected] including the name, the amount donated, the address from which you the donation is sent, and the transaction ID.

“All outgoing transactions from the Binance donation address will be explained by Binance and used for charity purposes only.”

The digital currency exchange, which generates an average of $1.5 billion in daily trade volume, wasn’t the first to make charity donations. In late March 2018, San Francisco-based Ripple supported U.S. public schools through DonorsChoose.Org by donating $29 million in XRP. Ripple was able to fund every single classroom project request on the nonprofit’s website, fulfilling 35,647 requests from 28,210 public school teachers in a total of 16,561 public schools, which is 1 in 6 of all the public schools in America.

According to Fidelity Charitable 2017 Giving Report, the Bitcoin community has significantly increased the amount and number of Bitcoin donations the organization has received. During the first semester of 2017, the total contributions made in the form of Bitcoin to Fidelity Charitable stood at $9 million, which is $2 million more than all donations made by the community in the whole year of 2016.

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On July 4, 2018 the Utrum Foundation DICO concluded, having successfully reached soft-cap mark of 1 million USD.  This unique form of crowdfunding, in which decentralization is paramount, enabled the Utrum OOT Coin to break some crypto-records through the short span of 2 months.

Most impressive is the listing of OOT on CoinMarketCap within the first 24 hours of kicking off the pre-sale on May 10.  What made this possible is the DICO model vs traditional ICO models.  In a traditional ICO there is an element of centralization.  Whether through a smart contract or a controlling organization, some part is centralized and there’s a lot of (usually blind) trust required on the part of investors.  

In a DICO, which stands for Decentralized Initial Coin Offering, there is no central organization, no smart contract, no controlling party.  In fact, it’s more akin to an Over-the-Counter (OTC) trade, as it utilizes Atomic Swap technology, powered by Komodo Platform.  This is wallet-to-wallet trading, using a decentralized exchange.

Because Utrum used BarterDex to make their ICO available, it not only kept the entire process decentralized and trusted, it also triggered CMC’s API when volume hit the exchange.  

Shortly after commencing the Utrum DICO many coin tracker apps began adding the OOT coin.  Crypto Pro, BlockFolio, BitSnapp, Cheddur and GetDelta all added the OOT coin during the DICO.  Before the DICO was finished CoinExchange listed OOT and opened trading in late June, making this coin one of the fastest listed, widely embraced new cryptocurrencies this year.

One of the reasons OOT is so widely accepted has to do with the project behind the coin.  The Utrum project is about building a trusted platform for the crypto-community, implementing a unique format that leverages crowd wisdom and Ai to identify trusted projects, ICOs, teams, assets and products or services within the crypto industry.  The Utrum Platform will be a hub for crypto reviews, analyses, predictions, and eventually a marketplace for crypto services and products similar to Fiverr.

The platform is designed to reward accuracy and trusted reputation, learning from the downsides of projects such as Steemit where manipulation is rampant, Utrum is developing a combination of tech and member participation to solve this and many related trust problems in crypto.  Using complex algorithms and reward mechanisms, community governance and curation, combined with crowd wisdom techniques Utrum aims to have a community hub where anyone from investors to developers can go and find trusted and clear information.

On July 1st, days before our DICO ended, Utrum hired CTO.  Andrew Dubinsky, a developer with over 20 years working on cutting edge technology, digital assets, and developing solutions for financial institutions in the way of digital authentication, joins Utrum as CTO and Tech Lead.  Andrew’s work in architecting software projects, designing digital asset solutions, and his passion and personal work in blockchain are essential to Utrum’s next steps.

We at Utrum are very excited to have Andrew on board, making the dream possible.  With the success of our DICO and addition of CTO, we have already hit the ground running with first steps of architect and software development commencing the first week of July.  

Looking forward, the Utrum OOT coin is being listed on RightBTC July 10 and other exchanges are already in the process of implementing OOT into their system.  This is one of the fastest coins to go to market in crypto history and we’re really grateful and proud of our project.

Utrum would like to especially extend our gratitude to our supportive community who made this project possible.  Thank you to all our investors and supporters who believe in what we are doing and are claiming a stake in our future, and we believe in the future of the crypto community.

A special thank you to our private investors as well, an investor from Korea “Goldenman” and the SuperNet fund, thanks to JL777 Komodo’s lead developer.  These two private investors stepped in, making a huge difference in helping us cross the threshold of soft cap.

JL777 is also Advisor to Utrum and has been a believer and supporter from day 1.  When founder Sridhar Panasa came up with the idea of Utrum, in a Komodo Slack channel, JL777 not only encouraged Sri to pursue this strongly, he helped with implementation of technology for the OOT blockchain and stepped in as advisor, empowering the project right from the start.  Again, the project could not have made it without JL777’s support and guidance, so a huge thank you to James Lee of Komodo.

If you’d like to learn more about the Utrum project or get involved in the community, please visit https://utrum.io.

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.

Cryptocurrency has been a global phenomenon. However, there is an inherent issue with the concept. The slower functionality and higher transaction charges are the two concerns being addressed with the aid of Lightning Bitcoin which forked on December 18, 2017. The Forked crypto coin is set to launch Smart Contracts and Zero Knowledge Proof in 2019.

Lightning Bitcoin – A Complete hard fork of Bitcoin blockchain

The Lightning Bitcoin is the unique coin that adopts DPoS Consensus mechanism. The technology aims at improving the concept of bitcoin and solving the problems associated with centralization of miners and network congestion you would have observed in Bitcoin Blockchain.

Lightning Bitcoin itself should be indicative of the fast transaction speed as compared to the regular Bitcoin features. As Dan Larimer, the creator of DPoS consensus mechanism claims “This design was chosen to ensure that delegates technically have no direct power and that all changes to the network parameters are ultimately approved by the stakeholders”.

What makes LBTC a unique project is the DPoS Consensus Mechanism it adopts. It reduces the negative effects algorithm from PoW consensus mechanism, which is congestion and centralization. In fact, it offers a better solution for network decentralization, which leverages the power of stakeholder approval voting to resolve consensus issues democratically. This can go a long way in enhancing the profits for the coin holders – whether promoters or investors and the complete efficiency of the network. The DPoS consensus lets the network get an improved transaction speed as a result of the enhanced consensus speed.

In fact, DPoS gives a specific schedule for the addition of next block to the blockchain. Thus you would not need specialized computers for solving mathematical algorithms in sharp contrast to PoW. Moreover, it reduces the chances of centralisation, unlike PoW where anyone with huge mining capacity has the options to form centralized mechanism. DPoS lets the coin holders choose who can validate the transactions. This improves the transaction performance and a high degree of decentralization.

The Lightning Bitcoin forked at the Bitcoin block height 499,999 on December 18th, 2017. The mainnet launched in February 2018. Currently, Lightning Bitcoin is actively developing core technology part and expanding its presence on cryptocurrency exchanges. LBTC has already been listed on six exchanges like CoinEgg, BTCTrade and supported by Cobo and Bitpie mobile wallets. Future development steps imply addition of creating smart contracts and DApps on the Lightning Bitcoin networks that would allow an alternative solution for the cross-chain atomic transaction.  

What’s unique about Lightning Bitcoin’s  DPoS

DPoS Consensus is what makes LBTC stand out from the rest of the Bitcoin forks.  What exactly is DPoS and how does it benefit Lightning Bitcoin? Well, DPoS refers to the Delegated Proof of Stake. It offers the power of voting to the token holders to delegate the right of bookkeeping to trusted nodes and thus works along the lines of true democracy.

What we mean by democracy is the fact that it completely decentralizes the entire bitcoin network. There is no central power that controls the miners or the functioning of the network. However, the dynamic structure of 101 trusted delegates that keep turns in forging blocks. To borrow the words of LTBC itself, “DPOS consensus significantly reduces the number of participating verification nodes, 101 nodes in case of LBTC,   and help LBTC reach consensus in seconds and boost the transaction speed to be as fast as lighting really”. LBTC works with instant transaction verification mechanism. The transactions are verified within block forging time, which is 3 seconds. This instant verification is excellent for a swapping vast and small amount of coins with low transaction costs.

The Future Ahead

The LBTC network is still under development. It is quite easy to get into the delegates board right away. If you want to be one of the delegates, you just need to meet the technical requirements, pay your registration fees and get a sufficient number of votes to qualify for the top 101 list – no need for coin lock up or network checks of any kind.

To prevent the network centralization by the delegate pool, there will be an integration of delegate committee system and lightning nodes elections. This will set requirements on coins lock up like it is in EOS or Vechain, delegates will have to provide information about their profiles thus turning the voting process into clear transparent mechanism based on delegate weight in the community.

Future lightning nodes elections, delegate committee will be discussed on the upcoming Lightning Bitcoin Open Source Conference June 21 in Shanghai. More details will be posted on Twitter soon.

In any case, we would look at Lightning Bitcoin as an attempt at an enhanced network with the all-powerful and democratically correct DPoS Consensus that makes the forked Bitcoin service one of the excellent alternatives to the host of Bitcoin clones you may come across while looking to invest in the cryptocurrency arena. From that perspective, it is indeed something we will have a close look at. Of course, there is no whitepaper available as yet, but we would indeed foresee a great future for the most democratic version of the cryptocurrency and a forked Bitcoin network that would indeed offer the best investment options.

Want to know more about Lightning Bitcoin? Visit the official website at http://lightningbitcoin.io/

The Codes are available at GitHub

You can share your views with the effectively moderated LTBC Forum

You also have access to LTBC fanbase

Visit them on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LightningBTC

They are available on Telegram at https://t.me/LightningBTC

The service has a well-designed support page at [email protected]

Press and Cooperation if any can be handled through [email protected]

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.

Malta, the tiny European island situated in the central Mediterranean Sea, has become the first country to provide an official set of regulations for operators in the blockchain, cryptocurrency and DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) space.

On July 4, 2018, the Maltese Parliament passed 3 bills into law, establishing the first regulatory framework for blockchain, cryptocurrency and DLT.

Malta’s Junior Minister for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation, Silvio Schembri, stated that the passing of the new laws marked an important milestone, as companies will be provided with the necessary tools to operate in a regulated environment.

“When we started looking into what was needed for the blockchain industry to flourish, we understood early on that the serious operators wanted legal certainty. As of now, operators are functioning in jurisdictions of legal uncertainty. Operators fear that one day a government in that particular jurisdiction will tell them they aren’t within the law – even though there are currently very few laws in place. This is creating legal uncertainty and we wanted to change this,” Schembri told me.

An Overview of the 3 Laws

The passing of the new laws is quite significant on a global scale, as Malta is now the first country to offer a holistic regulatory framework for DLT operations. In other words, these laws not only deal with digital currencies, ICOs and cryptocurrency exchanges, but also focus on a wide range of technologies that are not necessarily financially-focused.

The first law, known as the Malta Digital Innovation Authority Act (MDIA Act), establishes the Malta Digital Innovation Authority and certifies DLT platforms. This law will focus on internal governance arrangements and will outline the duties and responsibilities of the Authority to certify DLT platforms in order to ensure credibility and provide legal certainty to users wishing to make use of a DLT platform.

The second law, known as the Innovative Technology Arrangement and Services Act (ITAS Act), deals with DLT arrangements and certifications of DLT platforms. This bill is primarily concerned with the setting up of exchanges and other companies operating in the cryptocurrency market.

And the third law, known as the Virtual Financial Assets Act (VFA Act), establishes the regulatory regime governing ICOs, cryptocurrency exchanges, wallet providers, etc.

“The high-level principles of the European Union (EU) are reflected onto our laws. We have also based these laws [on]3 basic principles: market integrity, consumer protection and industry protection,” explained Schembri. “The ultimate aim is to bring legal certainty to an environment that is currently unregulated and bring legitimacy to this industry.”

The laws will officially go into effect in October of this year. Operators will then be able to review the laws to ensure that their companies are in line with each law. In the meantime, according to Schembri, if there is a company wanting to launch an ICO that is currently registered in Malta, that company will be allowed six months to comply with the laws. This period will be extended to one year for exchanges.

“We have chosen October for the laws to be put into effect, as Malta will hold a government-sponsored summit for DLT and blockchain innovation during October 3-5,” Schembri explained.

The summit, known as the DELTA Summit (which got its name from the Greek letter Δ, which means change in math), will host all the major players in the blockchain industry. Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, will make an official opening announcement, followed by discussions with Binance and OKEx, two of the world’s largest crypto exchanges that have both announced that they will set up operational bases in Malta.

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PHOTO: Malta’s Junior Minister for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation, Silvio Schembri, launches a public consultation on DLTs

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao told Bloomberg that Binance has earned USD 300 million so far in 2018, and expects total profits of anywhere between USD 500 million and USD 1 billion by the end of this year. Additionally, he stated that Binance now has 10 million registered users, a statement which also implies that cryptocurrency trading continues to be extremely active and lucrative despite Bitcoin’s steep price decline during 2018.

Binance opened 1 year ago in July 2017, and since then its use has skyrocketed. It is consistently the top-ranked cryptocurrency exchange in the world with an average of USD 1.5 billion of trading volume per day. During the cryptocurrency craze that saw Bitcoin hit record values near USD 20,000, Binance recorded peak daily volume of USD 11 billion.

Binance has experienced quite a bit of legal trouble from governments and was forced to move out of China after the September 2017 cryptocurrency ban. Since then there have been additional legal problems from government authorities in Hong Kong and Japan. This has caused Binance to expand globally so that it can survive. In Malta, Binance received a warm welcome and was able to acquire a bank account, and now Binance is using this bank account to launch fiat to crypto exchanges across the world.

Binance Uganda is already launching and will be trading cryptocurrency for the UGX, and Changpeng Zhao says fiat to crypto exchanges based in Malta and Bermuda are coming soon. Changpeng Zhao thinks that opening more fiat to crypto channels will help increase cryptocurrency prices by providing new routes for fiat money to enter the market.

Ultimately Binance is looking to launch a completely decentralized exchange built on the blockchain, and this will allow for the trading of any cryptocurrency anywhere in the world regardless of government regulations. This is perhaps not surprising since Binance was forced out of its native country of China. Changpeng Zhao foresees that decentralization is the only way to 100% guarantee Binance’s survival. Huobi, which is a major cryptocurrency exchange that was also forced out of China, is also developing a decentralized blockchain-based exchange platform.

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In today’s scenario, internet services invariably need Content Delivery Networks (CDN). A CDN refers to a group of servers spread across different geolocations that would distribute the resources present in web pages such as images, JavaScript files, etc. Without a CDN server, every request a user makes goes to the website’s main server. For e.g., if a user from Delhi, India opens a website which is hosted in San Francisco, USA, the request goes all the way from Delhi to the USA, and the server in the USA would return the requested resource file. As CDN replicates a resource across the globe, the request would now be routed to a server which is closer to the user’s location. Thus the use of CDNs speeds up the delivery of the content to the user. CDNs also help in reducing the load on the main server, enabling the website to scale to millions of users. The closer CDN is to the customer, the better his internet viewing experience is. Having said this, there are still a couple of issues with the existing infrastructural CDNs. Marlin Protocol is an innovative new approach to the CDN industry, that attempts to disrupt the CDN space and addresses inherent issues faced by the internet consumers worldwide.

Marlin Protocol – An Overview

The CDNs in the current mode of functioning operate through proxy servers and data centers. But the centralized operation used by the traditional CDN services incur a massive cost of setting up the servers and data centers.  These costs eventually fall on the customers, making CDNs inaccessible for many. Marlin Protocol attempts to change this scenario and make CDNs an affordable option.

At its core, Marlin is a decentralized CDN infrastructure. It makes use of the P2P ecosystem for enhanced processing, control and delivery of the content to users, but at considerably lower costs compared to the traditional model. It achieves this task by making use of the spare bandwidth that many internet users may have. Imagine yourself as someone who needs heavy internet access, and there is a user just a few hops away who does not use much of his bandwidth, leaving it idle. Marlin Protocol makes it possible to use this bandwidth and spare hard drive space and deliver it to those who need it.     

How Does Marlin Protocol Work?

Well, as we stated before, Marlin uses the spare bandwidth and the hard drive capacity of internet users.  

Now that the CDN server is quite close to you, you as a user would get the content at a faster rate. In fact, the delay in the delivery of the content is caused by the unusual physical distance between you and the hosting server. Marlin’s mechanism essentially reduces this distance. This enables you to get your content delivered faster, providing a more seamless web experience.

However, one key differentiator between Marlin and other P2P CDN networks is the fact that Marlin also incentivizes the people providing their bandwidth and storage space. It makes use of the Blockchain technology and smart contracts to achieve the task.  Marlin makes use of its own cryptocurrency for this purpose. The transactions are performed through the exchange of the native token of the network – LIN token. Marlin has its decentralized accounting and payments service that enables the all the transactions in the network.

In essence, the decentralized model of CDN functionality would help eliminate the issues in the traditional CDN technology and lowers costs and congestion in content delivery.

Architecture of Marlin Protocol

The basic structure of the network would be on the following lines –

• It works as a peer to peer network. Peers or the members of service would be able to monetize their bandwidth and hardware space for serving the internet-based content.
• A 2-layer architecture ensures availability, uptime and good performance at low prices in the face of high churn.
• It makes use of caching algorithms that offer you a low latency and high throughput thereby enhancing the availability.
• The technology serves the higher need for bandwidth as has been necessitated in today’s content that thrives on AR/VR and 4K content.
• The service comes with auditing mechanisms that are completely secure and keeps the records of bandwidth usage and storage that has been let to be used by the peers in the network.

The protocol works on the basis of the smart metering technology that would take care of the correct payments being made to the peers for the kind of services that they have provided for the community. This takes care of the publishers as well, ensuring that they are not overcharged.

The Concluding Thoughts

Marlin is indeed been a unique concept and can go a long way in improving the CDN scenario. The technology used in the CDN protocols of the service is expected to bring down the costs to the tune of around 90 percent lower. This cost reduction does not result in a reduction of quality though. We would think services like media streaming and AR/VR streaming would foresee a positive impact of this innovative concept.

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.

According to Blockgeek’s Ameer Rosic, blockchain tech still has a long way to go before it will reach the level of scalability needed for widespread adoption