Day: July 24, 2018

“For the first time ever,” Fortune magazine announced, it “has assembled a supplementary honor roll of the most impressive, young superstars who are transforming business at the leading edge of finance and technology.” They’ve selected forty representatives from all over fintech, and each is under forty years old. Among them are many cryptosphere leaders finally getting their due.

Also read: Coinbase Flexes Muscle, Creates Political Action Committee

Bitcoin Dominates Fortune’s New Ledger 40 Under 40 List

Traditionally, Fortune’s lists comprise go-getters from all sectors of commerce, be they are CEOs or Academy Award winners. Indeed, the magazine just came out with their annual 40 Under 40 list, and for sure cryptocurrency luminaries such as Vitalik Buterin and Brian Armstrong were among them. However, for the first time, this year Fortune supplemented their usual list with a special emphasis on financial technology leaders.

Jihan Wu, 32, made the list. The magazine describes him as “the undisputed king of cryptocurrency mining hardware and crypto mining pools.” Beijing, China-based Bitmain recently reached a double digit valuation in the billions. He, of course, “has been known as a big proponent of Bitcoin Cash, a controversial fork of Bitcoin. Earlier this year, his company led a $110 million financing round for Circle, the crypto startup with the highest valuation in the U.S. Wu told Fortune earlier this year that he’s interested in ‘stablecoins,’ virtual coins that have a fixed price, and that he plans to diversify Bitmain by developing AI chips.”

Amber Baldet, 35, is that rare, new breed of CEO who can comfortably, seamlessly make her way between Wall Street and more radical elements of the ecosystem. She cut her teeth professionally at “JPMorgan Chase,” the magazine notes. She would eventually leave “America’s biggest bank this year to found a blockchain startup, Clovyr. While on Wall Street, she brought the hoodies (hacker-coders) and the suits (bankers) together, and she led the team that built Quorum, an Ethereum-adapted blockchain built for business. Earlier this month, Baldet, who is an alum of the flagship Fortune 40 Under 40 list, was appointed to the board of the Zcash Foundation, a non-profit group that governs the privacy-centric cryptocurrency Zcash.”

Arthur Hayes actually asked his age not be documented. He’s known for thinking a bit different than his peers. The online magazine insists before Chicago Merc and Cboe entered the futures market, Mr Hayes’ “Bitmex, a crypto derivatives marketplace that allows for leveraged bets of up to 100 times the principal on digital assets from Bitcoin to Cardano,” mapped out a space for itself. It wished to be “the most liquid crypto futures exchange,” and by the end of last year, it “handled an average $2.1 billion in trades,” the magazine insists. That’s “far more than the $50 million that changed hands with the Cboe on its first day of launch.” Curiously, Mr. Hayes routinely offers he does not own any bitcoin.

Of note as well is our own Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver, 39. As is the case with fellow Lister, Mr. Wu, Mr Ver is “an outspoken evangelist for Bitcoin Cash. The controversial fork,” the magazine details, “of the Bitcoin network represents the ‘big-block’ version of the original Bitcoin blockchain, meaning [it’s] designed to handle greater transaction throughput. Fluent in Japanese, Ver runs Bitcoin.com from Tokyo and remains the epicenter of a large cryptocurrency community there.”

Read the rest of the Ledger 40 Under 40 List here.

What do you think about these lists? Let us know in the comments section below. 

Images via Pixabay, Fortune. 

Be sure to check out the podcast, Blockchain 2025; latest episode here. Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section.

The post Bitcoin Dominates Fortune’s Most Impressive, Young Superstars List appeared first on Bitcoin News.

A study of decentralized exchanges conducted by the analytics firm Alethio in July 2018 found that exchanges which claim to be decentralized have a relatively small amount of trading and liquidity and aren’t truly decentralized. It is found that so-called decentralized exchanges actually have varying degrees of centralization.

Decentralized exchanges have become a popular idea in the cryptocurrency community, since they would allow people to trade cryptocurrency without the oversight of a centralized organization. This would theoretically allow anonymous trading, lower fees since there is no centralized organization trying to make profit, and much less hacking and exit scams since users can control their cryptocurrency instead of depositing it into the exchange’s accounts.

According to the report, IDEX one of the biggest decentralized exchanges, facilitated 69,339 trades during a two-week period, fewer than the 92,024 trades Bitfinex conducted in a two-day period. Bitfinex has far lower volume than the biggest centralized crypto exchanges such as Binance, Huobi, and OKEx.

The other leading decentralized exchanges Bancor, 0x, and EtherDelta, had fewer than 10,000 trades. Therefore, as of now, decentralized exchanges have low trading volume and low liquidity, making them a sub-par choice for traders looking to make optimal traders. Further, decentralized exchanges can’t be used by institutional investors since there would be tremendous slippage, not to mention they don’t have proper regulatory compliance and licensing.

As far as decentralization is concerned, there has been controversy recently over the fact that Bancor was able to seize funds from users with some previously hidden code after a recent USD 13.5 million hack. The way Bancor exerted control makes them a centralized exchange in this respect. Also, Bancor only has a single market maker on the exchange – itself. This inherently makes the trading process centralized.

0x is a protocol for creating exchanges on the Ethereum network and claims to be decentralized. However, 0x works by allowing relayers to build markets on top of the protocol, and these relayers can exercise centralized control. One of the relayers, Paradex, has been purchased by Coinbase and collects all of the standard KYC identification data to be compliant, making it the same as any centralized exchange. So basically, 0x is a bunch of centralized exchanges built on a decentralized network. One benefit of 0x that makes it somewhat decentralized is users hold their own cryptocurrency instead of holding it in an exchange account.

The biggest decentralized exchange, IDEX, fundamentally relies on a centralized website, which is the case for most so-called decentralized exchanges. If this website were hacked the exchange would at the least be very difficult to use, if not totally unusable.

Two of the biggest exchanges in the world, Binance and Huobi, want to transform into decentralized exchanges. However, the leader of this project for Huobi, Gordon Chen, admits that full decentralization is probably not possible. He says, “We’re not 100% sure if a corporation can be 100% autonomous. We’re not sure if it can be 100% decentralized either. But we believe there can be some kind of balance in between.”

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The post Study: Decentralized Exchanges Aren’t Truly Decentralized And Lack Liquidity appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

An industry self-regulatory organization formed by crypto exchanges in Japan is proposing a limit on how much investors can borrow in margin trading

Key Highlights

• ETH price started a fresh upside move and traded above the $465 and $470 resistances against the US Dollar.
• There was a break above a major declining channel with resistance at $461 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).
• The pair is currently placed nicely in an uptrend with a key support near the $466 level.

Ethereum price is on the move above $465 against the US Dollar. ETH/USD is likely to break the $485 high for more gains in the near term.

Ethereum Price Support

Yesterday, there were a few swing moves below $460 in ETH price against the US Dollar. Finally, the ETH/USD pair managed to move higher and broke the $460 and $465 resistance levels. It even settled above the $468 resistance and the 100 hourly simple moving average. It seems like the price formed a decent base near the $445 level before the current bullish wave.

During the rise, there was a break above a major declining channel with resistance at $461 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair traded as high as $485 and it is currently correcting lower. There was a test of the 38.2% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $446 low to $485 high. However, declines were protected near the $468 support area. More importantly, there is a strong support near the 50% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $446 low to $485 high at $466. If the price declines from the current levels, it is likely to find support near the $468 and $466 levels.

Looking at the chart, the price is placed nicely above $466 and it may perhaps extend gains above the $485 level. The next resistances are sitting near the $496 and $500 levels.

Hourly MACD – The MACD is currently flat in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI – The RSI is currently well above the 50 level with positive signs.

Major Support Level – $466

Major Resistance Level – $485

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: Can ETH/USD Hold Gains Above $466? appeared first on NewsBTC.

Ripple released its Q2 market report, saying that XRP’s decline is in line with overall trends in the crypto market, which “underscores independence” from Ripple

Tron Price Key Highlights

• Tron price could have another shot at a rally as it broke above the neckline of a short-term double bottom.
• Price is hitting resistance around 0.0400 and may be due for a pullback before resuming the climb.
• Applying the Fibonacci retracement tool shows the nearby support levels where more buyers might be waiting.

Tron price confirmed a short-term double bottom but might need to make a pullback to gather more bullish momentum.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is below the longer-term 200 SMA to confirm that the path of least resistance is still to the downside. This suggests that the path of least resistance is to the downside or that there’s a chance for the selloff to resume.

RSI is pointing down so Tron price might follow suit while sellers take control and buyers take a break. Stochastic is also on the move down after briefly hitting overbought levels.

However, if any of the Fib retracement tools keep losses in check, the uptrend could gain some traction. The 200 SMA is near the 50% Fib at 0.0365 while the 61.8% Fib lines up with the 100 SMA dynamic inflection point at 0.0356.

In that case, Tron could still revisit the swing high at 0.0400 and a break higher could confirm that the uptrend is set to carry on.

TRXUSD Chart from TradingView

Cryptocurrencies have been on a good run lately, but it looks like bitcoin is getting the lion’s share of the gains. Other altcoins like Tron are lagging behind on the lack of specific updates that could buoy them higher.

Still, investors are looking to the SEC decision on the bitcoin ETF to spark another rally in the crypto industry as this could pave the way for other types of token-based funds to be introduced. Risk-taking in the financial markets has also proved positive for Tron and its peers, with retail traders not wanting to get left behind on the rallies.

The post Tron (TRX) Price Watch: Small Reversal Pattern Sighted! appeared first on NewsBTC.

Key Points

• Bitcoin cash price gained traction and jumped above the $840 and $850 resistances against the US Dollar.
• There was a break above a declining channel with resistance at $810 on the hourly chart of the BCH/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair is placed nicely in an uptrend and it could retest the $890 and $900 resistance levels.

Bitcoin cash price is surging higher against the US Dollar. BCH/USD is primed to extend gains above the $880 level in the near term.

Bitcoin Cash Price Trend

There was a strong buying interest emerged around the $770 level in bitcoin cash price against the US Dollar. The BCH/USD pair started an upward move and jumped above the $800 resistance. The move was strong as the price settled above the $825 resistance and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Later, BCH buyers got into action and pushed the price above the $840 and $850 resistance levels.

The price traded as high as $877 and is currently consolidating gains. An initial support is near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $772 low to $877 high. If the price extends its correction below the $850 level, it could trade towards the $840 support. However, a key support sits near the 50% Fib retracement level of the last wave from the $772 low to $877 high. Below this, the 100 hourly SMA is a strong support near the $810 level.

Looking at the chart, the price is clearly in an uptrend above the $850 level. A push above the $877 high will most likely open the doors for more gains above the $880 level. The next hurdles for buyers are near the $890 and $900 levels.

Looking at the technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD for BCH/USD is showing positive signs in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BCH/USD is now well above the 55 level.

Major Support Level – $840

Major Resistance Level – $890

The post Bitcoin Cash Price Analysis: BCH/USD Surging Above $750 appeared first on NewsBTC.

Popular Ponzi dapps aside, for ethereum developers, there’s plenty of work being done to make legit dapps an integral part of web 3.0.

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

• Bitcoin seems unstoppable in its climb as it sets its sights on the next upside targets.
• Price is on its way to test the dynamic resistance at the 200 SMA inflection point then the $9,000 area of interest.
• Technical indicators on the daily time frame are still reflecting the presence of selling pressure.

Bitcoin price has been on a tear and buyers might have enough energy to push for a test of the next upside barriers.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is below the longer-term 200 SMA to suggest that the path of least resistance is to the downside. In other words, there’s still a chance for the longer-term downtrend to resume.

Price has busted through the 100 SMA dynamic resistance, though, so there’s some bullish momentum building up. Bitcoin price is ready to test the 200 SMA dynamic resistance around $8,500 next. This is near a former support turned resistance level at the $9,000 barrier.

A move past this level could lead to a test of the $10,000 major psychological level, where several investors may be looking to book profits. Stronger bullish pressure could take bitcoin price to the next ceiling close to $12,000.

However, RSI is indicating overbought conditions already, which means that buyers are starting to feel exhausted and may let sellers take over. Similarly stochastic has reached overbought levels and may turn lower to signal a return in bearish pressure.

BTCUSD Chart from TradingView

Market Factors

Bitcoin was off to a running start in the quarter before some selling pressure ensued on negative commentary from well-known economists. The rally was reignited when it was confirmed that BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, formed a team to look into investment opportunities in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

This has sparked a case of FOMO among retail investors who don’t want to get left behind in the rallies. Traders are also treating regulatory updates more positively and are looking to the SEC decision on the bitcoin ETF as the next major catalyst.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Price Watch: Bulls Keep Charging, Where to Next? appeared first on NewsBTC.

Mike Novogratz’s merchant bank Galaxy Digital led a $52.5 million fundraising round for crypto-lending firm BlockFi

A Coinbase internal investigation has found that no insider trading of Bitcoin Cash took place in December, 2017, while a class action lawsuit is still being pursued

Robert K. Hur, United States Attorney from the Maryland district, filed a motion on July 20, 2018 to dismiss a 2013 three-count indictment against Ross Ulbricht which included murder-for-hire allegations. Mr. Ulbricht, 34, was prosecuted under a separate indictment out of the New York district as Dread Pirate Roberts, principal operator of underground online marketplace Silk Road. Many legal analysts concluded that the looming Maryland indictment prejudiced law enforcement in at least advocating aggressive sentencing in Mr. Ulbricht’s case. He is serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.     

Also read: Coinbase Flexes Muscle, Creates Political Action Committee

US Attorney Hur Files Motion to Dismiss 2013 Murder-for-Hire Indictment Against Ross Ulbricht

“Pursuant to Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure,” a recently released court document titled, Motion to Dismiss Indictment and Superseding Indictment, explained, “and by leave of Court endorsed hereon the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland hereby moves to dismiss with prejudice the Indictment and Superseding Indictment pending against the defendant in the above-captioned case.”

In a statement to News.Bitcoin.com, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur explained his reasoning, “Mr. Ulbricht’s conviction and life sentence in the case handled by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York have been affirmed BY the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case. We have dismissed the federal charges based on the same conduct pending against Mr. Ulbricht in Maryland, which allows us to direct our resources to other cases where justice has not yet been served.”

Phone calls to the Maryland US Attorney’s office were answered by Public Affairs Specialist Marcia Murphy, a nearly two decades veteran, working in one form or another in a US Attorney’s office. Though familiar with Mr. Ulbricht’s high profile prosecution in the Southern District of New York, she mentioned being unaware US Attorney Hur had filed a motion to dismiss the 2013 indictment.

Asked flatly if the motion meant anything relevant to Mr. Ulbricht’s ultimate guilt or innocence, she preferred not to comment. Specialist Murphy did, however, stipulate Mr. Ulbricht’s having already been convicted, and how there was “nothing to be found” by keeping open the 2013, twelve-page indictment brought against him by then-US Attorney Rod Rosenstein (now United States Deputy Attorney General, appointed by President Trump in 2017).

She used phrasing such as “district overlap,” almost making the motion to dismiss more of a formality rather than exoneration. Asked also if the motion could be typical administrivia, an effort to clear legal calendars rather than a legally significant filing, Specialist Murphy told news.Bitcoin.com, “You wouldn’t be wrong.”

Change.org

Still, Mr. Ulbricht seemed most obviously relieved, tweeting, “Just found out the govt moved to drop the case against me in Maryland. What a huge weight off my shoulders that will be.” He is currently in a Colorado federal prison, serving a life sentence without parole. His Twitter account is maintained by family and supporters.

Though the Maryland indictment was sealed previously and separate from the indictment for which Mr. Ulbricht was found guilty, media stories with headlines touting murder-for-hire were considered prejudicial at the very least. Mr. Ulbricht was convicted on a range of charges, from various cyber crimes to drug trafficking and money laundering.

His conviction and sentencing were appealed, ending at a recent Supreme Court decision to uphold lower courts’ findings, all of which were unfavorable to Mr. Ulbricht. Of particular concern was the life sentence, and his legal team argued it was the Maryland indictment, never formally acted upon, that caused the judge to hand down such a heavy punishment.

More recently, supporters at FreeRoss.org mounted a Presidential Pardon petition on Change.org. At time of publication, the petition had close to 35,000 signatures.

Will the President pardon Ross? Let us know in the comments section below. 

Images via Pixabay, Twitter. 

Be sure to check out the podcast Blockchain 2025, latest episode here. Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section.

The post Ross Ulbricht Murder-for-Hire Indictment to Be Dismissed appeared first on Bitcoin News.

It was shocking – and offending – when I heard the news of Katlego Marite’s kidnapping and that the kidnappers had demanded ransom in Bitcoin. As Kai Stinchcombe puts it in Ten Years In, Nobody Has Come up With a Use for Blockchain, blockchain has no real use except “currency speculation and illegal transactions”.

But is that really the case? Have all the efforts to disrupt banking and remove middlemen ended in creating a haven for illegal activities?

The New Web

Blockchain is sometimes referred to as Web 3.0. Web 2.0 gave birth to interactive websites and social media platforms, facilitating collaboration between people like never before. They are the new giants: Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb all stem from this evolution. But it also had its downsides.

We now have too much control in the hands of central authorities, where misuse or even hacks can lead to breaches affecting millions of people – whether it’s a “breach of trust” as with Cambridge Analytica, or flat-out theft as with Equifax. Furthermore, these giants either charge high fees for their middlemen services or use your data for their trade. Nothing is free. This is where Web 3.0 comes into the picture.

In my earlier posts, I discussed how blockchain removes the middlemen, so let’s focus on two new aspects here: is this necessary? And what would the benefits be?

Blockchain’s Necessity

The main opposing argument is that anything a blockchain system can do, a central system can do that much better, and faster. From a simple mathematical standpoint, this can be true; instead of updating several computers and having them replicate everything at all times, it is much easier to update a central location. But the problem is that these central locations have a tendency to misuse their powers. That is why we need to get rid of them.

With blockchain, you put your trust in cryptography instead of a central authority. This frees us from unnecessary fees and censorship, as well as hacking and single points of failure. Hacking a blockchain is much harder than hacking a database, and if some nodes in a blockchain network fail, the rest of the net will keep functioning just fine.

Of course, this is an ongoing debate. Many would welcome the services of a central authority. For instance, you cannot reverse a Bitcoin transaction if you detect fraudulent activities on the other side. Once you pay, it’s gone. The crypto community welcomes this feature, since the same process has been misused through trolling and chargebacks. Smart contracts are slammed for not being that smart, and you still need to trust the coder of a given contract, just as you’d need to trust a lawyer to write a legal contract.

But there is a much more fundamental change coming with the third Web.

The Economic Disruption

The token economy that blockchain projects create is more than just creating new currencies. A plausible side effect of this decentralized economy is that the coin holders are incentivized to make the prices of their coins rise. As such, they become the advocates and marketers for their coins. As Jeremy Epstein reveals in The Decentralized Marketing Organization, “Marketers who are employees in a centralized organization are accountable to the leaders who judge their results and decide their compensation. In a decentralized project, many of the people executing marketing tactics are token holders who need to be inspired, educated, and activated without the typical hard and fast guardrails of a traditional scenario. Their compensation doesn’t come from a boss; it comes in the form of market response to their aggregated activities, as measured by the appreciation in the value of a crypto-token.”

In the decentralized model, it is the core who is accountable to the edges – a total flip of the marketing model as we know it.

Social Media’s Promise

The Web 2.0, and specifically social media, was called the biggest innovation in the economy since the invention of bread. Before that, people would go out in the forest, hunt down one antelope, eat it, then go for the next. But with the invention of bread, the entire model changed; people could now produce much more food, and communities started to form. Our civilization was based on this.

Social media brought the same disruption to online marketing; instead of brands going out after individual customers, they can now create engagement around their brands and products. Instead of one-directional advertising about how good a brand’s products are, people are given a voice and can leave real feedback and impressions about those products. Brands have to shift their focus from spending money on advertising to spending money on the quality of their products so that people ‘like’ and share them.

Web 3.0 takes this one step further; it converts the customers to marketers. Instead of a centralized marketing system that adheres to what a boss might think, the new model is democratized and requires the brand to inspire. This model is also much more efficient since, according to Epstein, “innovation, insights, and awareness happen at the edge of the networks, not in the center.” The magnitude of customer-marketers and the interactions they have not only outnumber what the center could achieve, but are also implemented and executed much faster. Thus, brands are pushed even more to improve the quality of their products, to create something their customers love, as they will take care of the marketing.

Authority-Less

Where authorities and regulations become part of the problem instead of being part of the solution, blockchain offers a viable alternative. That’s why the UN used blockchain to issue identities to refugees in a Jordanian refugee camp – a process that would have otherwise required months of time and tons of paperwork. Blockchain’s decentralized model makes it impartial – resistant to bias, censorship, or even technical failures. This impartiality is important in designing systems that work between platforms – for instance, an item collected in a Ubisoft game could be used in one developed by Activision Blizzard. Since there is no biased, central authority, both companies can trust the protocol, and the gamers win.

Blockchain to Prevent Fraud

Returning to the case of Katlego Marite, blockchain could actually be the only platform which prevents such transactions. What I’m about to propose would require a new fork or smart contracts, but it’s doable: since blockchain is immutable, we could have a feature that would efficiently block funds coming from illegal transactions. For instance, I could set a blacklist of addresses I never want to deal with, nor deal with any money coming from such sources. Immutability would ensure that no matter how deep into the transaction, if my wallet detected that the incoming funds had any association with such transactions, it would reject them. With this feature, it would be best for anyone to blacklist such accounts as soon as possible so their own accounts don’t get infected either. Besides the humanitarian factor, it would be better for Bitcoin’s own reputation too.

Blockchain has the ability to do much more than just facilitate illegal transactions and speculation – it can bring power to the people. We just need to use it right.