Day: July 15, 2018

Crypto markets keep building momentum, with nine out of top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap in the green and Bitcoin inching towards the $6,400 mark

In the past twenty years, technology has advanced to the point that it is now a ubiquitous part of our lives. The internet provides global connections that comprise everything from social media to e-commerce. Smartphones, affordable computers, and a continual, reliable internet connection have had a transformative effect on the way we interact with the world around us.

For instance, online shopping is supplanting the in-store experience for many consumers. Forbes notes, “For the first time ever, shoppers are going to the web for most of their purchases.” Even the way we work is being altered by the digital age. Upwork, a popular exchange for freelance workers, predicts that freelancing will be the dominant expression of work within the next decade. Many of these independent workers are connecting with clients online, which makes their businesses a small-scale global enterprise.

At the same time, the decentralized economy is updating our expectations of technology. Much like the internet proliferated at astounding rates in the 1990s, the decentralized economy is producing new platforms and services and reorienting our relationship with technology. Propelled by blockchain, the technological underpinning of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, this new economy is quickly taking root.

The Challenges of a Changing Economy

These drastic changes underscore a dominant component of the digital age: It’s inherently transactional.

Unfortunately, while the internet is great at facilitating connections, it lacks trust, and disputes frequently arise. Some of these conflicts are significant enough that they are adjudicated in court, but, in most instances, the offenses are minor enough that legal action is both inappropriate and prohibitively expensive. Therefore, the enormous opportunities afforded by the digital economy are limited by a lack of accountability.

Of course, technology can solve this problem itself. New platforms are blending the prolific digital economy with new possibilities afforded by blockchain technology to build trust and accountability in the digital economy.

JUR: Dispute Resolution for the Digital Age

JUR is a dispute resolution platform that implements blockchain technology and game theory to creates trust between parties operating in the global economy. Using a digital token, JUR offers a verified payment infrastructure as well as decentralized dispute management that restores confidence in digital transactions and interactions.

Their platform includes qualified legal professionals, consensus-based voting, and anti-bias principles that are governed and secured by the blockchain. In this way, things like smart contracts, escrow deposits, and legal agreements are created and enforced in a digital environment.

Conflict resolution is a critical but missing component of the digital age, and JUR’s services implement its services in a simple, secure way so that the digital economy can continue to flourish.

Decentralized Dispute management

Since arbitration and adjudication are, in most cases, unreasonable and untimely, JUR makes those services available in a timely, affordable way. When users open a dispute, JUR solves disputes within 24 hours, and there is minimal cost to the user. The entire process is facilitated and funded by JUR’s digital token.

When a user opens a dispute, arbiters, termed “oracles,” use the JUR token to vote for the winning party. Utilizing the blockchain’s smart contracts, funds are automatically transferred to the winning party’s account.

Potential for ICO investors and entrepreneurs

Last year, 210 blockchain-based platforms released unique digital currencies that enable these platforms to function. By the end of 2017, these platforms raised $3.8 billion through the ICO process, and dozens of other companies employed different methods to develop their projects.

However, this year has been a boom for the decentralized economy. Just halfway through the year, nearly 600 projects launched, and they’ve raised a collective $12.4 billion. JUR is prepared to infuse this market with new opportunities to facilitate their development in a trustworthy way. For example, ICO campaigns can create marketing contracts with developers that are automatically paid in digital currency. Moreover, token sales can be governed by the JUR platform, which increases accountability and reliability for a crucial component of the blockchain’s expansion.

OTC Transaction Facilitation

Each month, more than 3 billion cryptocurrency transactions take place. For the millions of people now conducting cryptocurrency transactions, JUR represents a way to eliminate the counterparty risk when transacting in digital currencies. Users can quickly and easily implement a smart contract that ensures a fair transaction. This added confidence level can hasten cryptocurrency adoption and make it more usable in the established marketplace.

In total, the need for accountability and dispute management is long overdue. The digital economy is buzzing with activity, and it demands equitable treatment for its users. With JUR, the digital economy is trustable and usable by anyone.

The post Between Oracles and Smart Contracts: JUR to Take Dispute Management Onto the Blockchain appeared first on NewsBTC.

Is there anything you can do to save your crypto if your wallet has been hacked? What are the most common ways thefts use to steal coins? Explore the basics of crypto wallet security

Various banks around the world have shown a tendency to oppose cryptocurrency. Bank of Queensland is doing exactly that, even though its decision makes a lot of sense. Clients were tapping into home equity loans to buy cryptocurrency, which is ill-advised.

Bank of Queensland Bans Crypto Buying

When consumers spend their own money on cryptocurrency, there is usually no real problem for any bank. Even though some institutions oppose buying Bitcoin with a payment card, there are still a lot of options when it comes to obtaining cryptocurrencies. Using bank transfers works just fine, and peer-to-peer transactions involving cash remain popular.

Issues begin to arise when clients borrow money from a bank and use that money directly to buy Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. That’s especially true if it involves a home equity loan, as banks are fearful clients won’t repay the money if they invest it in cryptocurrency. That is certainly a very real risk to contend with. Cryptocurrency is a notoriously volatile asset, and there are no guarantees for profit whatsoever.

Bank of Queensland evidently noticed that a fair few of its customers were using their home equity loans to invest in cryptocurrency. It is evident that cannot be sustained much longer, as they should be buying houses with the money rather than cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. As such, the bank has now officially banned such activity, which makes a lot of sense from a business perspective.

The bigger question is how the bank will enforce this ban. The purchase of cryptocurrency is only visible after one’s equity home loan has been issued. Since consumers can spend this money however they see fit, it will be quite difficult to enforce an official ban on this front. Other lenders are discouraging borrowers and mortgage brokers from getting involved in cryptocurrencies as well.

One way to ensure this activity comes to an end is by monitoring borrowers’ accounts for specific activity. When problematic trades are discovered, the bank could freeze the home equity loan or the account in question. Whether or not Bank of Queensland will take such action remains to be determined.

Although all of this shows there’s still a genuine interest in cryptocurrencies, the way people are going about it raises a lot of questions. Obtaining bank funding to buy cryptocurrency is asking for trouble in the long run. That’s especially because such loans have to be repaid on a monthly basis, and failing to do so will destroy one’s financial reputation.

Coinbase remains one of the more popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, despite not having offered support for very many currencies over the years. The company is now “exploring” adding several additional currencies, although the list includes some rather interesting names.

Coinbase Makes Another Move

For Coinbase, it is evident that adding additional cryptocurrencies, assets, and tokens will keep its business afloat. Providing convenient access to BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH, and ETC is only a part of the long-term plan. In the coming years, the platform will enable trading of dozens of other tokens and assets. No exact timelines have been provided at this point, although five currencies are on the short list to be added.

That list includes some rather surprising items. Although the addition of Zcash and Stellar makes a lot of sense, other currencies may not necessarily be as logical. Stellar has been on a meteoric rise in popularity over the past few months, even though its price might not necessarily reflect this. Zcash is also doing big things, even though its market position has declined dramatically.

The other tokens Coinbase is currently exploring include 0x, Cardano, and Basic Attention Token. Of those three currencies, BAT makes the most sense, as the Brave browser is currently exploring the integration of Basic Attention Token in a real-world environment. As such, there will be a lot more tokens being used at all times, and users will be looking for ways to convert said tokens to other cryptocurrencies.

Cardano, while still a relatively new cryptocurrency, also has a fair amount of market traction. This is despite the project still being in the very early stages of development and having very little working code to back up its efforts to date. Even so, it is a currency that’s of keen interest to speculators. It is only natural that companies such as Coinbase would want to get in on the price action sooner or later.

Support for 0x is quite interesting as well. This token powers the 0x exchange protocol, which is a direct competitor to centralized entities such as Coinbase. Lending a helping hand to competitors is pretty significant in the cryptocurrency industry, as competition brings out the best in companies.

It is important to note that the addition of these five tokens will not impede the ongoing integration of Ethereum Classic. There are also no guarantees that these five currencies will be added to Coinbase in the near future. The company is merely exploring its options at this stage.

Coinbase recently published a new blog post stating the possible addition of several new cryptocurrencies to their platform.

The assets in consideration are Cardano (ADA), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Zcash (ZEC), and 0x (ZRX).  The announcement was made at the same time within Coinbase and publicly to remain transparent, and perhaps to avoid a similar situation when Bitcoin Cash was added.

These assets were considered based on the criteria Coinbase has laid out in their Digital Asset Framework. The blog post goes into further details, discussing specific reasons why each asset stood out to the Coinbase team.

The platform says adding any or all of the above tokens will require “additional exploratory work” and places no promises on listing any of them for trading. This is unlike the Ethereum Classic support that is currently being worked on, due to its technical similarity to Ethereum.

Other caveats are discussed in the blog post as well, such as the possibility of some of the new assets only being available for purchase and sell, with no send/receive functionality enabled. This would give some coins purely investing characteristics, like what Circle is doing with their Circle Invest app.

The last two restrictions the post discusses is the way users maybe able to interact with certain assets: for example, Coinbase may only support deposits and withdrawals from transparent Zcash addresses. This is a likely scenario, in order to be in compliance with any financial regulations that may apply.

Coinbase may also stagnate the launch of these assets in certain regions, most likely testing them in other markets before they are available to the US customers.

No promises have been made on timeline for adding support to these tokens, as they have only discussed the possibility of them being on the platform. But if selected, Coinbase will be making their first expansion into smaller capitalization cryptocurrencies.

With many of Coinbase users being intuitional traders as well, this offers them an exposure to the segment of the crypto-market that was previously untapped.

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The post Possible Addition of 6 Cryptos, New Coinbase Blog Post Reveals appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

SIX Group, the operator of Switzerland’s largest stock exchange, aims to release a digital trading platform by mid-2019 and is “open” to the possibility of offering crypto trading on it

More than 80 percent of ICOs in 2017 are identified as “scams,” while the UK sees crypto becoming mainstream within a decade — read more in our Hodler’s Digest

There is an increasing number of platforms being launched to help wealthy consumers part with their cryptocurrency, usually on luxury items, writes the China Morning Post.

Such entrepreneurs have created a business seemingly out of very little, but nonetheless, they are serving a specific crypto elite and creating a thriving retailer-consumer database.

Working from her gallery in London’s Mayfair, Eleesa Dadiani is one of the new providers to the crypto rich, with clients ranging from 20 to 70 years of age. It started a couple of years ago, she maintains, has noted that those who had made significant profits from cryptocurrency trading really had no idea how to spend it. Using her established clientele through her gallery Dadiani Fine Arts she decided to make it happen by forming a syndicate of retailers and customers to turn some of this wealth into goods. She explained:

“A couple of years ago, when we saw bitcoin perform as well as it did, there was no way to use those coins. You were rich on screen, but what could you do with it? You could invest in ICOs [initial coin offerings], but what about something tangible? The answer was ‘Nothing’.”

Dadiani is certainly a believer and wants to make cryptocurrency do what it was intended for. Her gallery was one of the first globally to accept multiple cryptocurrencies; she currently supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Ripple, Dash, and NEM. Her customers come to her so she can help them make that otherwise difficult crypto purchase.

The list of her client’s purchases are impressive to say the least, from bloodstock to jets, from gold bullion to rare cars, she’s handled them all. Even the purchase of four Formula 1 cars valued at £4 million ($5.3 million) wasn’t enough to dampen her enthusiasm for her role as crypto “middle-man.”

She says she has little time for crypto-idealists trying to create decentralized government-free crypto utopias, suggesting that people need to make a “cognitive shift” and find a way of integrating cryptocurrency into real life through gradual change. She argues:

“These libertarians, they don’t understand money, they don’t understand history,” she says. “They know nothing about politics or international relations. You have to understand the world you live in before you can change it.”

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Even though Kraken is one of the older exchanges in the cryptocurrency world, it too needs to innovate and add more currencies. While it remains unclear if it will do so, the company’s most recent tweet has sparked considerable debate on this topic. It is possible all of this is just one big joke, though.

Kraken’s Mysterious Tweet

Social media has proven to be an interesting platform for all companies active in the world of cryptocurrency. Some use it to convey important messages, whereas others see it as a way to have some fun at the expense of gullible users. In the case of Kraken, its most recent tweet regarding potentially adding new currencies could still go either way.

The company has shared that it is actively exploring the addition of new currencies. Every single exchange goes through this process on a regular basis, mainly because the demand for exposure to different currencies is only rising. Accommodating those needs is of the utmost importance for any company, especially one with a reputation such as Kraken’s. The firm has not offered too many new trading pairs over the past few years, after all.

Exciting and important revelation for the community today. Kraken has been contemplating the exploration of maybe adding over 1600 new coins, pending the outcome of our highly sophisticated review process. For a glimpse of the possibilities: https://t.co/dmfd5yr48s

— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) July 14, 2018

Although it seems highly unlikely the company will add over 1,600 new currencies in one go, expanding on its existing offerings seems more than warranted. With so many cryptocurrencies finding niche markets, tapping into different revenue streams has become a lot more appealing for exchanges. Finding the right currencies, tokens, and assets to add is a different matter altogether.

It is evident Kraken needs to keep tabs on all new currencies making a name for themselves. Quite a few of these currencies are still at risk of becoming completely irrelevant in the coming year or years. Bitcoin and Ethereum are still the only two dominant currencies in the market, mainly because they actually serve a purpose. For a lot of altcoins, finding that use case has not happened just yet.

One could argue that this is just a case of Kraken having some fun at the expense of Coinbase, which announced on Friday that it’s considering adding up to five new digital assets. Even so, Kraken’s recent overhaul of its trading engine and underlying services has resulted in a much smoother overall experience. As such, there is plenty of room to add support for new currencies.

In light of Coinbase’s announcement, it is evident Kraken and other exchanges will need to take a similar approach. All cryptocurrency exchanges have to find ways to attract even more clients now and in the future. That is much easier said than done, as users have differing desires, needs, and expectations.