Day: July 9, 2018

Co-founder of Google and President of Alphabet, Sergey Brin, revealed he is mining Ethereum with his son at a summit hosted by Sir Richard Branson on July 8. The panel also spoke on the potential of zero-knowledge proofs which underlie the privacy option of Zcash.

Blockchain is a “Tremendous Opportunity”

Sergey Brin, who has an estimated net worth of $52 billion, is mining Ethereum with his son according to Michael del Castillo who was reporting from the 2018 Blockchain Summit hosted at Sir Richard Branson’s hotel, the Kasbah Tamadot, in Morroco. Brin, who is the ninth richest man on the planet, spoke at an event on the potential of blockchain technology for doing good in the world.

Also speaking at the event was Former Guns n’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum who highlighted the ability of blockchain to defend artists’ intellectual property rights. Sorum, who now works at concert-hosting platform Artbit, said that blockchain technology feels ‘rebellious’ and ‘very rock and roll.’

Sergey Brin #Google #Alphabet on Authentication of Records and the Potential of #Blockchain #BlockchainSummit Could see the future in this mind blowing technologies #Cryptography #ProofOfWork pic.twitter.com/kRU2m9eK32

— Eva Kaili (@EvaKaili) July 8, 2018

Sorum said: “A user should be able to own content in a way that rewards the artist. When the blockchain came along, I said, this can happen. And the way it will work is through smart contracts.”

Former SEC Commissioner Annette Nazareth said that regulators understand that blockchain is a ‘tremendous opportunity.’ She also said that it is a big step that they are stating that Bitcoin and Ether are not securities. Former CFTC chair Jim Newsome agreed that regulators are heading in the right direction but was adamant that good regulations need time.

Newsome said: “We are still in the early stages of this technology’s development. We’re in the first inning of a very long ball game. So we need to be careful not to rush regulators too much. Because typically when you rush regulators, they tend to get it wrong.”

Praise for Zero Knowledge Proofs

Sergey Brin called the potential of zero-knowledge proofs ‘really mindboggling.’ These proofs can be used to show that a transaction is accurate without revealing the transaction data to the nodes. This is one of the main privacy settings behind Zcash as opposed to Monero which obfuscates transactions instead. The panel focused on emerging technologies and trends.

Neha Narula, director of the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT Media Lab, backed zero-knowledge proofs as one of the most fascinating blockchain solutions in the near future.

Narula said: “Basically, you will be able to prove that something is true, without revealing the reasons for why it’s true. So to prove you’re 21, you don’t have to show the official documentation that you’re 21. Zero-knowledge proofs are going to be very transformative in the next few years.”

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The Central Bank of China is calling the country’s crypto ban a huge success as recent data shows that the Chinese Yuan is currently being used in less than 1% of crypto-trades.

Chinese Crypto Ban Huge Success

The Chinese crypto market once dominated the space, accounting for 90% of all global trades according to a report in atimes.com. That was before Bitcoin led cryptocurrency on an unprecedented bull run in the latter part of 2017 which spread fear throughout the banking world and resulted in a tightening of regulations over the space in most countries.

China outlawed initial coin offerings (ICO), a popular fundraising method for crypto companies, in September of 2017 while cracking down on crypto trading, supposedly to combat scams. Since then officials have shuttered 88 cryptocurrency exchange platforms and shut down 85 ICOs.

Zhang Yifeng, a blockchain analyst at the Zhongchao Credit Card Industry Development Company said of the new data:

“The timely moves by regulators have effectively fended off the impact of sharp ups and downs in virtual currency prices and led the global regulatory trend,”

Despite the success of the ICO ban, China is heavily invested in blockchain technology projects. It may lead the world in crypto mining and has been working on a national cryptocurrency that would be issued through the Peoples Bank of China. Officials from the PBoC and regulatory bodies in the government have made pledges to support global regulatory frameworks if they are ever created.

Interested in Global Regulatory Framework

In March the PBoC through its Institute of International Finance released their “Global Banking Industry Outlook Report” in which they outlined a policy of supporting global financial regulation. As quoted from that report “China should actively participate in the global governance of digital currencies”.

While the Chinese government may be calling their crypto regulation a great success it was also the main factor in a massive exodus of crypto exchanges and other related business, along with investors, out of the country.

Binance, one of the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchanges, began in Hong Kong but fearing regulatory interference after China implemented its 2017 ban moved first to Japan and more recently to Malta which has become a safe haven for crypto-based companies.

The loss of revenue created by the ban doesn’t seem to bother financial commentators speaking on the country losing 89% of its crypto trading market. As Guo Dazhi, research director at the Zhongguancun Internet Finance Institute, concurred:

“This indicates that the policy has been very successful. It is within expectations that the yuan’s share in global Bitcoin transactions would drop after China announced the ban.”

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BTC is showing signs of exhaustion near a key resistance zone, still, the short-term outlook remains bullish.

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has announced that Bitcoin trading with the Chinese Yuan (CNY) has fallen to less than 1% of Bitcoin’s total global fiat volume. This is a drastic change from when CNY to Bitcoin trading comprised over 90% of global fiat trading volume at peak levels. This data suggests that the cryptocurrency trading ban has been effective.

In September 2017, China made it illegal to trade CNY for cryptocurrency and simultaneously prohibited initial coin offerings (ICOs). This caused a drastic change since prior to the ban, China had been the global hub for cryptocurrency trading, with the highest volume of cryptocurrency exchanges in the world and by far the most Bitcoin mining.

The Chinese government allowed 88 cryptocurrency exchanges and 85 ICO trading platforms zero-risk exit plans for leaving China. Huobi, Binance, and OKCoin, among the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, ceased CNY trading which temporarily stifled their operations. Huobi and Binance have actually thrived since the ban, opening cryptocurrency exchanges in multiple countries; they now rank in the top 3 out of all global cryptocurrency exchanges. Huobi moved its headquarters to Singapore and has just opened cryptocurrency exchanges in Australia and the United States with plans to open another exchange in London by the end of 2018. Binance has set up offices and a bank account in Malta, and has already used that bank account to open a fiat to crypto exchange in Uganda, with plans to launch more exchanges in different countries.

OKEx, which is headquartered in Hong Kong and was started by OKCoin’s CEO Star Xu, is also among the top 3 cryptocurrency exchanges. In general, Hong Kong has become the Chinese hub for cryptocurrency activity since it has an autonomous government that is far more favorable towards cryptocurrency than the rest of China. The biggest Bitcoin mining manufacturer in the world, Bitmain, is headquartered in Hong Kong and has a valuation of USD 12 billion. Bitcoin mining activity was largely unaffected by the ban, and China continues to be the global leader in the crypto mining industry.

Ultimately, the Chinese cryptocurrency trading ban appears to have had beneficial effects, since it has led to an overall decentralization of cryptocurrency trading activity. Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin trading was becoming extremely concentrated in China, but the ban forced this activity to scatter across the globe.

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Cloud computing startup Oasis Labs has raised $45 million in a private token pre-sale to develop its blockchain platform.

Legendary actor William Shatner who is beloved around the world for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk on the original Star Trek series has been righting some wrongs of his own in the crypto universe as he called out a ‘pump and dump scheme’ using his name on a fake twitter account.

BTW another fake me pushing a pump and dump crypto Ponzi scheme: @wiliiamshatners

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 2, 2018

Shatners Not Giving Away Ether

Shatner called out the fake tweet, which used his profile photo and name with just an S added to the end, that was hyping an Ethereum giveaway scam. The fake tweet promoted a website called etherpromotion.org which promised visitors who sent them between 0.5 and 20 Ether in order to confirm their addresses would receive ten times the amount back.

The scammer had been tweeting on the fake Shatner account since late June but had only managed to gain six followers. At the time of writing both the twitter account and website have been suspended.

Though Shatner’s description of the scam may have been a bit off, his followers responded with the kind of devotion that hardcore Trekkies are known for. This isn’t Shatner’s first brush with the crypto world as the 87-year-old actor recently become the spokesman for a Canadian alternative energy company called Solar Alliance which is building what they describe as the first solar-powered cryptocurrency mining facility.

When speaking of the project Shatner described his understanding (or lack of) blockchain technology and Bitcoin in a very Kirkian way saying:

“You have to blank your mind and say ‘What is blockchain, again? How does mining operate, again?’ The concepts are really strange, and yet when you begin to grasp it, it makes sense.”

Crypto Scammers May Take $3 Billion in 2018

Scammers using fake celebrity twitter accounts to promote crypto schemes is a widespread problem as the imposters specifically chose names with known links to the crypto market. Big names that have been used for similar schemes in the past include Bitcoin evangelist John Macfee, entrepreneur Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson and even Vitilak Buterin one of the founders of Ethereum.

2018 has proven so far to be a boom year for crypto-related fraud. The US Federal Trade Commision held a workshop titled ‘Decrypting Cryptocurrency Scams’ where they estimated that scams involving cryptocurrency in some way had netted approximately $542 million in the first two months of this year. Projecting that figure through to the close of the year the FTC predicts fraud in the space to possibly hit the $ 3 billion mark.

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Israel blockchain startups are target of new $100 mln venture fund from Benson Oak, local media report

FOMO Moments

Crypto land is in limbo this Monday morning; few altcoins are gaining, Tezos, Digibyte and Mixin among them.

The weekend momentum has come to a halt on Monday and markets have pulled back a little. Total market capitalization could not break over the $280 billion barrier and has fallen back.

Bitcoin found resistance at $6,800 and has remained just under it at $6,780. The lack of bullish action has pulled most of the other cryptocurrencies back into the red again. Ethereum has pulled back 1.5% in the past 24 hours to trade at $485. Most of the altcoins are in the red at the moment and have lost gains made over the weekend.

EOS currently has the biggest decline in the top ten, falling by 4.5% on the day to $8.60. This puts it back at a similar level to the same time last Monday, trade volume over the past day has remained at around $500 million. Stellar and Monero are showing minor gains of between 1-2% but nothing significant.

In the top twenty VeChain is the biggest loser with a 4.8% fall on the day to $2.48. Just outside it OmiseGO and Ontology have both lost between 5-6% wiping out all gains over the past 48 hours.

Tezos once again has continued to climb and according to Coinmarketcap has gained for the third day in a row, today by 2.8%. Currently trading at $2.21 XTZ is marginally up from $2.13 this time yesterday. A similar gain can be measured against Bitcoin, 3.5% to 32900 satoshis.

To find another altcoin in the green we have to go further down the list to 33^rd spot where DigiByte can be found trading 10% higher. DGB is currently at $0.042, up from a low of $0.036 yesterday. Only Mixin and Monaco are showing double digit gains at the time of writing. Bitcoin Diamond is suffering the most with a 24% fall on the day.

Total crypto market capitalization has shrunk by 1.3% on the day to $273 billion. Daily trade volume has fallen from $12 to $11 billion indicating a slowdown in momentum. The next direction is hard to predict as neither bears or bulls are getting the upper hand at the moment.

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

The post Cryptocurrency Market Update: Weekend Gains Turn into Monday Losses appeared first on NewsBTC.

Blockchain technology has the potential to strengthen the scientific method by providing an immutable and transparent ledger system that scientists can use to store experimental data and share it with each other. This will make the scientific method more robust and efficient, accelerating the advancement of science and our collective knowledge of the universe.

An important part of the scientific method is to conduct multiple experiments to ensure that a result is accurate. In the past, experiments have led to incorrect theories being accepted as fact, only to later be debunked by further experimentation. With an immutable blockchain ledger, scientists will be able to inspect scientific data for errors and compare their experiments with each other, so that scientific theories based on solid evidence using proper experimental procedures can be developed.

Furthermore, storing experimental data in a blockchain ledger will allow other scientists to use the data for their own experiments, rapidly accelerating the sharing of scientific information. As it is now, data from scientific experiments is stored in many different locations and formats, making the sharing of data difficult and slowing down the scientific process.

Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) are the most promising version of cryptographic technology that scientists can use to store data. They are like a blockchain, but better suited for large and complex data sets. CyberVein has already developed a DAG-based platform that scientists can use to store and share data, and it is more efficient than using the Bitcoin blockchain because it doesn’t require all nodes to store data. Also, it uses the Proof of Contribution algorithm, which is more efficient than Bitcoin’s Proof of Work algorithm. It is practically unfeasible to store large amounts of scientific data on the Ethereum or Bitcoin blockchains since it would cause blockchain bloat, and it would be very expensive to do in the first place due to transaction fees.

The spokesman for CryptoVein says, “On CyberVein, nodes are only required to store data shards relevant to their own transaction history and the smart contracts they are parties of. With this approach, CyberVein is able to store entire databases as smart contracts which are permissioned to their owners and participants, without congesting the rest of the ledger”.

CyberVein brands itself as a universal network of decentralized databases that doesn’t require centralized storage providers. It has a native cryptocurrency, CVT, which appears to be fairly active with a market cap of USD 60 million and daily trading volume in excess of USD 250,000.

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Was was to be expected after a rather positive weekend for all cryptocurrency markets, the new week is off to a bit of a rough start. Most of the top currencies have lost a small bit of value, even though there is no reason to panic just yet. The Stellar price, for example, has gone up in value over the past 24 hours, which shows the positive momentum is not over yet.

Stellar Price Continues to Rise

It comes as a bit of a surprise to see the Stellar price rise at this point in time. Considering how this alternative currency is completely different from traditional cryptocurrencies, it seems to do its own thing first and foremost. This becomes a lot more apparent right now, as the Stellar price has risen over the past 24 hours whereas the Bitcoin price is in the red.

Although this 0.96% Stellar price increase is not necessarily something to be overly excited about right now, the current momentum doesn’t look that terrible either. There’s still plenty of room for improvements in this regard, but it will heavily depend on how the Bitcoin value evolves in the coming hours. So far, it seems Bitcoin will recover most of its losses fairly quickly.

Until the Bitcoin price recovers, the Stellar price will continue to do its own thing. This is also why the XLM/BTC ratio has increased by 1.1% in the past 24 hours, something which would have been nearly impossible if the value of Bitcoin would be declining at a rapid pace. How this ratio will evolve in the coming hours and days, remains anybody’s guess at this stage.

One side effect of transitioning from Sunday to Monday is how the overall cryptocurrency trading volume tends to drop off at first. This has proven to be the case once again, and it also results in the Stellar volume dropping to just under $41m. That is still a relatively solid number regardless, albeit it may not be sufficient to keep the momentum going for the remainder of the day.

The way things stand right now, Binance is clearly dominating the Stellar trading volume charts. Its BTC and USDT pairs are well ahead of the competition, with BEX claiming third and fifth place with its CKUSD and BTC pairs. CoinEgg is the other exchange in the top five with another BTC market.  No real fiat currency pairs in the entire top seven is a bit worrisome, but things may turn out alright in the long run.

As is usually the case in the cryptocurrency world, things will remain subject to change first and foremost. As of right now, it seems the Stellar price has no issues to remain afloat, although there are no guarantees in the world of cryptocurrency and digital assets either. If the Stellar price can maintain its current momentum, staying above $0.21 shouldn’t be too difficult. Especially if Bitcoin recovers lost value, things will get very interesting later today.