Month: July 2018

Chinese media platform Global Finance is reporting that tens of thousands of Bitcoin mining rigs have been drowned in floods in Sichuan, China. Apparently, 70% of Bitcoin mining rigs are in China, and 70% of Chinese Bitcoin mining rigs are in Sichuan. This is due to an abundance of cheap hydro-electric power in the region. The Bitcoin mining hash rate actually dropped significantly at the time the floods occurred, from 43.1 exhash/s on 23 June 2018 (the all-time record for Bitcoin mining hash rate) to 30.5 exahash/s on 26 June. Global Finance says the timing of the dip in mining hash rate corresponds exactly with the Sichuan floods.

It can’t be known for sure whether the drop in Bitcoin’s mining hash rate was caused by the floods in Sichuan, but when looking at a long-term mining hash rate chart the drop in hash rate is much greater than normal variations. This is possibly the biggest drop in mining hash rate in Bitcoin’s history. The hash rate did recover to 39.5 exahash/s on 27 June, still 3.6 exahash/s below the all-time high set on 23 June, and this difference could possibly represent machines that were damaged or destroyed in the flood and offline.

According to the Global Finance news report, during the peak of flooding some hydro-electric power plants went offline due to heavy debris in the water. Bitcoin mining in China largely depends on cheap hydro-electric power, so perhaps hydro-electric power plants turning back on can explain the quick recovery of Bitcoin’s mining hash rate on 27 June.

Heavy continuous rains have impacted parts of China this week, probably associated with the monsoon which is a common summer phenomenon. 31 rivers in 6 different provinces have overtopped their banks. Flooding was especially bad in Sichuan and Shandong, with vast amounts of cropland and houses damaged. At this time estimated damage is USD 111 million, but fortunately, no one has died in the floods.

Overall, perhaps the lesson from this story is that Bitcoin mining needs to be spread out geographically to maintain a secure network. If a large amount of Bitcoin mining is concentrated in one spot it can be destroyed all at once by a disaster, which is detrimental to network security.

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Developers of malicious software have shown a great aptitude for cryptocurrency integration. This has become painfully obvious due to the recent malware and ransomware trend. In this day and age, most criminals are interested in cryptojacking, which still remains a very profitable venture. A new McAfee security report shows how quickly this industry is growing.

Cryptojacking Continues to Gain Traction

Over the past few months, there has been a more than noticeable increase in the number of cryptocurrency mining malware samples. It appears this trend has been directly influenced by the mining of cryptocurrencies through a web browser. Although this is generally a perfectly legitimate business model, criminals have begun injecting such code into websites they do not own or control.

Thanks to this cryptocurrency browser mining code, site visitors will – unknowingly – dedicate CPU cycles to the mining of Monero. That cryptocurrency balance will then be distributed to the criminals who injected the code in the first place. It has become a very problematic venture, as hundreds of websites have been infected with such mining code in the past six to eight months.

Unfortunately, the injection of mining code into websites is not the only problem computer users have to contend with. There has been an equal increase in cryptocurrency mining malware samples disguised as regular computer applications. Some video games have even been targeted in this regard. It is evident that criminals continue to favor this business model despite the falling price of Monero and other cryptocurrencies.

According to the McAfee Labs Threats Report June 2018, the rise of cryptojacking is far from over. Several major distribution campaigns have been identified, ranging from the Winter Olympic Games to Lazarus and the most recent GhostSecret campaign. The latter attack focused on various sectors, including telecommunications and healthcare. It is still active to this very day and has proven nearly impossible to detect.

Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of cryptojacking is that it continues to evolve. New distribution methods have been uncovered, but the coding of the tools themselves is also becoming a lot more sophisticated. Coin-mining malware saw a 629% increase in popularity between Q4 2017 and Q1 2018. That is an extremely worrisome development, and may only represent a fraction of the Q2 2018 figures.

As such, the question becomes what the future holds. Based on this McAfee Labs report, it seems unlikely cryptojacking will become less popular over time. It is even becoming a bigger and more lucrative industry compared to ransomware, as one doesn’t need to make people buy cryptocurrency. It has also become apparent that this trend affects not just computers, but also smartphones and tablets.

It seems the cryptocurrency markets will close the weekend in the low red. Most currencies have lost value in the past 24 hours, whereas a few others have gained a bit of value in the process. A remarkable trend, yet also an aspect that makes cryptocurrency so appealing. The NEO price, for example, is trying to mount somewhat of a comeback in this regard.

NEO Price Surpasses $30 Again

Over the past few weeks, there has been very little focus on NEO or the NEO price among cryptocurrency speculators. With all cryptocurrency markets suffering from unrelenting bearish pressure, it seems some altcoins are on the verge of becoming far less appealing in this regard. For NEO, that situation is seemingly changing again.

Looking at the chart, there is a modest NEO price increase over the past 24 hours. It is a positive trend after everything that has happened throughout 2018 so far. Reaching the all-time high EO price of $155 will be pretty much impossible this year, unless something changes drastically. For now, that seems rather unlikely, as the current momentum just isn’t positive.

As one would come to expect, this current NEO price gain is made possible thanks to a small improvement in the NEO/BTC ratio. Thanks to a 2.7% increase in favor of the altcoin, things are looking up, for the time being. It is evident this momentum can – and probably will – turn around on a dime, which is not something to look forward to.

Similar to most other cryptocurrencies, NEO is enjoying a slight increase in 24-hour trading volume. Although $74m is far from impressive compared to a few months ago, it is still better than some other altcoins on the market today. If this volume keeps up for a few days, there may be some further NEO price gains to enjoy.

No one will be surprised to learn Binance is the largest exchange for NEO trading volume. Its BTC and USDT pairs are clearly ahead of CoinEX’s, BCEX’s, and CoinEgg’s BTC pairs. No fiat currency markets in the top five can be quite problematic for NEO moving forward. although it remains to be seen if Bitfinex’s USD market can mount a surprising push tomorrow.

Ending the weekend on a high is quite positive for NEO price speculators. Whether or not the value will remain above $30 for much longer, is a different matter altogether. Something has to change for all cryptocurrency markets in the coming days, or things will undoubtedly turn different shades of red once again.

The UK real estate developer Get Living recently conducted a survey to determine people’s attitudes towards property investment across cities in the region.

The survey revealed that 27% of male millennials considered Bitcoin to be a better long-term investment than buying a property, assuming that they were even able to get on to the housing ladder. Get Living put these results down to the high-flying performance of Bitcoin compared to that of real estate:

“For Millennials the soaring performance of Bitcoin – followed by an almost equally profound correction – holds more intrigue than the prospect of steady growth in house prices,”

These results are not simply localized to the UK economy. Another survey conducted in November 2017 by US  venture capital company Blockchain Capital showed that in the US this same demographic preferred Bitcoin ownership to stocks and government bonds.

The Harris Poll revealed that 27% of millennials would rather own $1000 of Bitcoin than the same value in stocks, with male respondents reaching a 38% preference for BTC. Other figures revealed that almost a third of millennials would shun government bonds in favor of the digital currency with 22% rejecting real estate investment for Bitcoin.

Although it was clear from the survey that males were more well disposed towards Bitcoin than the female respondents, recent surveys show that women are increasingly beginning to invest in cryptocurrencies. The number of women showing an interest in investing in cryptocurrencies in the UK has gone from 6% to 13% over the last six months, reports City AM. Another recent report by the cryptocurrency firm London Block Exchange showed that cryptocurrency is most popular with women in the millennials group.

One thousand current college students took part in another study conducted by Pollfish in March, showing that 21% of the students had used college grants to buy Bitcoin. The Student Loan survey was conducted between February and March of 2018 shortly after Bitcoin had reached record highs.

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Cryptocurrency exchanges are an excellent way of converting between fiat currency and cryptocurrency. In most cases, one would expect users to buy cryptocurrency, rather than convert it to cash. For Coinbase, the month of April proved to be very different in this regard.

Coinbase’s Outflow of Funds Is Very Real

Whenever the going gets tough in the world of cryptocurrency, there is a good chance people will convert their holdings to fiat currency. Considering that the year 2018 has been anything but bullish, it is only natural that there is less desire to buy Bitcoin or altcoins. Most people often chase short-term profits first and foremost, and the past few months haven’t presented any opportunities in this regard.

This uneasy situation has had many consequences. First of all, there has been an overall decline in the daily cryptocurrency trading volume. The days of $40+ billion being traded every single day are well behind us, as the 24-hour volume barely scratches $15 billion these days. In a fair few cases, it has even dipped below $10 billion. Compared to a few years ago, that is still a big increase, but it’s not what the industry needs right now.

Secondly, it would appear a fair few cryptocurrency investors are not holding onto their assets anymore. Rather than diversifying their portfolios, there has been a vast increase in crypto-to-fiat conversions. For the Coinbase exchange, this became incredibly apparent in April of this year. During that month, according to research, the company saw more money flowing out of the platform than new deposits showing up.

Although it is not uncommon for exchanges to see more capital flowing out compared to funds coming in, it doesn’t happen often in the cryptocurrency industry. For Coinbase, it is a clear sign that April was somewhat of a breaking point for cryptocurrency, even though the situation hasn’t improved since. All prices remain low and continue to decline, which could lead to more people pulling their funds out of exchanges completely.

So far, it seems this was just a one-off situation. However, it’s created a very uneasy precedent in the world of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin and altcoins are often perceived as forms of money that are superior to fiat currencies such as the US dollar. During April, it seemed the balance of power tipped in favor of the fiat currencies. That’s not a positive sign by any means, although one has to keep in mind that this research – conducted by Chime – represents a small sample of Coinbase users.

It is evident that the ongoing battering of all cryptocurrency markets has made some investors very nervous. In most cases, these are people who only learned about Bitcoin during last year’s price craze and simply invested at the wrong time. There is a very real chance that the cryptocurrency markets will turn around again and note new all-time highs. It will probably not happen in 2018, but the coming years will be very interesting regardless.

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At press time, the father of cryptocurrency is standing its ground at $6,300. The past two weeks have been a series of up-and-down dilemmas as bitcoin has fallen to $6,200, then $6,100, then down to $5,800, putting many investors in a state of terrible unease. Its sudden spike to the $6,300 range is giving many traders a small chance to relax, though there’s still plenty of work to be done.

The currency’s stumble to $5,800 marked a four percent drop from its present position, and many analysts were wondering if perhaps the currency would make its way below $5,000 in the coming weeks. Ran Neuner – founder and CEO of OnChain Capital – predicted the currency’s price would fall to this level in early June, and suggested that things weren’t over just yet.

“Unfortunately, the same model that told us we would be going to $5,900 is telling us there is more blood to come,” he eerily stated. “[The model] is calling a 62 percent chance of a bear market, and a bear market means that we are going to test $5,350 as the next point. Right now, my money is on the market continuing to go down.”

He ultimately believed this crash could happen in as little as two weeks, and that there was only a 16 percent chance of a bull market coming to fruition. He also argued that mining had lost its appeal, and the costs of mining now significantly outweighed the benefits.

“This is where the miners look at this and go, ‘Is it worth keeping the machine on?’” he said. “We may see a very different game in mining.”

In addition, several other cryptocurrencies were making their way down the red path with bitcoin, including Ethereum, EOS, Litecoin and Cardano, all of which exhibited even worse drops of roughly six percent over 24-hour periods. Ripple’s XRP was also down by approximately four percent.

However, where bitcoin seemed to have an advantage was in its purchase appeal to investors. Despite numerous drops, bitcoin was, and still is, the largest cryptocurrency in the world, and investors appeared to be stepping away from riskier means. Many began taking their money out of dodgier, lesser-known coins and putting it into bitcoin purchases. Thus, the level of bitcoin dominance has reached a whopping 43 percent – a figure not seen since last April.

The last cited source also mentioned that uncovered short positions could potentially cause bitcoin to spike beyond $6,000 again at the end of June. Not only was the source right, but it’s also predicting further price jumps at the end of the quarter.

It now appears bitcoin is enjoying at least a temporary period of recovery, and bullish signs are beginning to emerge on the technical charts that indicate a corrective rally.

Unfortunately, it’s very hard to predict if these indicators are short or long-term, and the currency remains a volatile entity that can put many investors at risk. Granted one is willing to play around a bit, they should only do so with funds they can afford to part with.

Bitcoin Charts by TradingView

A very peculiar trend has become a lot more apparent in the world of cryptocurrency as of late. The rise of stablecoins has been well-documented, yet it seems a lot more of these currencies are on the horizon. Reserve aims to be pegged to the US dollar and will offer some stiff competition to USDT and TrueUSD.

The Stablecoin to Trump Them All?

Over the past few months, many things have changed in the world of stablecoins. A stablecoin is a new digital asset which is usually pegged to a fiat currency or other resource. In the case of Venezuela’s Petro, it is evident that the backing by Venezuelan oil is also an interesting and valid business model to pursue, even though that particular currency has not found any real-world use cases so far.

Additionally, there has been the ongoing Tether (USDT) controversy which has sparked many debates in the cryptocurrency world. The lack of a proper audit of Tether’s reserves has led many people to believe the company is not as liquid as it might appear. Whether or not that is actually the case remains to be determined. For now, anyway, USDT is one of the more popular stablecoins on the market, as it is used across many exchanges and trading pairs.

Earlier this year, TrueUSD began making the rounds. It is another stablecoin pegged to the US dollar and is currently mainly used on Bittrex and Binance. Even so, its market cap is a lot lower compared to that of Tether’s USDT, and it will remain less popular for some time to come.

With these two stablecoins competing for traction, one would wonder whether or not more of these coins would come to market. If the Reserve team is to be believed, there is plenty of room for more stablecoins. This new USD-pegged stablecoin recently raised $5 million in funding from Peter Thiel, Coinbase, and a few others.

The reason why this project has gotten so much attention is that it was created by a team of Google and OpenAI veterans, among others. This new stablecoin is not necessarily designed just for the cryptocurrency industry, as it can solve other problems as well.

Reserve is mainly designed to help people save money in a more efficient manner. Considering that there are dozens of countries where deflation is causing problems, the introduction of the Reserve stablecoin could shake things up. According to the project’s team, Reserve will be an open currency which specializes in stable purchasing power. Whether or not that goal can be achieved in the long run is unclear.

Humanity’s march has been characterized by innovation. The groundbreaking wheel was developed to create chariots for wars and pottery for homes. In the modern world, innovation in creating the smartphone and blockchain has driven our digital age. The logical evolution would be to merge these two technologies. This is where Zippie comes in.

The Zippie project looks to build a mobile solution which integrates blockchain-based services. It looks to provide blockchain-powered devices to make it viable for mass use and adoption. At the same time, it provides developers with a platform to integrate their blockchain-based services with the Zippie platform. Finally, it intends to get community members involved by providing direct user feedback.

The ZIPT token is the Zippie platform’s utility token, and it is used mainly for three purposes:

• To reward active users
• To incentivise application development
• To form a viable curated market mechanism.

The team at Zippie comes with a history of building open-source mobile operating systems, products and communities. They have already partnered with Jolla to launch a developer and community program that will support their ecosystem. Zippie looks to ensure a smooth user experience in a decentralized way, while still valuing privacy, transparency and collaboration.

Overview of the platform

Zippie intends to embed blockchain into mainstream consciousness by ensuring:

• An open and independent mobile platform for decentralized services, to ensure that data and transactions are verifiably transparent
• A smartphone experience where private keys and transactions are handled in a safe but easy-to-use way
• The integration of various blockchain services, producing a seamless experience

Key Features

The Zippie platform is based on several open-source technologies. It is going to support multiple Android and Sailfish configurations, either side by side with the OS or on its own.

The Zippie platform provides a secure, open-source environment for hosting blockchain services and DApps in separate containers. This makes it nearly impossible for untrustable applications to reach private information.

By utilizing Shamir’s Secret Sharing with private key management, Zippie ensures easy handling of one’s private keys and identity. The platform-hosted services also provide a secure display overlay on one’s phone that can’t be intercepted on the OS side.

A developer and community program for Sony Xperia devices is meant to empower DApp developers to integrate their services with the Zippie platform and engage pioneer users. A strong mobile DApp ecosystem, partly funded by the Zippie project, will provide Zippie’s users with the services they need, easily and safely. By default, the Zippie platform blocks internet access unless specifically allowed.

How It Works

The Zippie platform is an Ethereum-based open smartphone runtime environment which supports Ethereum and other blockchain protocols and DApps natively and securely.

After downloading and installing the platform, one’s device boots up and requires a photo ID to establish the user’s digital identity. This digital identity is the user’s legal identity and is also used to build a reputation score based upon one’s community and financial activity.

Zippie automatically generates private and public keys for each user’s wallet. The platform splits the private key into two or more pieces for extra security.

For everyday transactions, the user can identify him or herself with a fingerprint sensor. After identification, the device pulls both parts of the private key and triggers the transaction.

By mining cryptocurrencies or renting their device’s processing power or storage, the end user can accrue ZIPTs. The DApp store has various blockchain-based services that are curated by the community. Lastly, a career portal is linked to the platform. It allows users to earn ZIPT tokens by recommending people.

About the Team

Dr. Antti Saarnio is the founder and executive chairman. His resume includes a wide range of experience, from the chairman at Jolla to a developer of open mobile operating system Sailfish OS. He has over 15 years’ experience in emerging markets and investment management, having worked at KPMG and Accenture.

Carsten Munk is the CTO and co-founder, as well as the founder of the Mer mobile open-source community project. He did pioneering work on Linux/Android stacks for Nokia and later for Jolla as its CTO. He’s the team’s leading blockchain expert and holds an M.Sc. in computer science.

Robert Pallas is a software partner and lead developer at Devtailor. He is an experienced entrepreneur and software development team leader. He earned a M.Sc. in cybersecurity, with his 2012 thesis being about Bitcoin security.

Niilo Ristmeri is the head of marketing and business development. He is an expert in agile marketing. He was involved with marketing and sales at both Jolla and Embassy of Design. He holds a B.BA. degree in marketing and management consulting.

Teemu Päivinen is an advisor who brings extensive knowledge and experience as an entrepreneur and investor focused on blockchain and governance. He is also the founder and chairman of Oddshot.tv.

Token Performance Details

Introduced into the market in May, Zippie (ZIPT) tokens were initially valued at US$0.071 per token.

ZIPT token lifetime performance chart (courtesy of CoinMarketCap)

While the currency has not set any new records, due to the newness of the associated product, it is difficult to assess the true potential of this token.

As of June 25, the price of a single ZIPT token stood at $0.041.

Final Thoughts

Zippie is ambitious in its scope, with a cross-platform application morphing into an operating system. Even in its nascent stage, this service can potentially be deployed on various public chains, networks, and operating systems. As a result, it would not be surprising to see this project do well this year.

If you are interested in investing in Zippie, ZIPT trading pairs are currently available on DDEX, IDEX, and OTCBTC.

Digital asset management is only as efficient and manageable as the ecosystem it runs on. IP Gold, a digital asset management company, understands this. The platform is already running on Ethereum’s backbone. However, it has recently decided to shift its whole system on one of the most efficient blockchain ecosystem available: NEM.

NEM Selection

The company, after careful study of all the platforms and networks available, decided to migrate itself to the NEM network. Although already running on the much more popular and well established Ethereum network, the company realized that with nearly every other platform and company using the largest decentralized network as its backbone, Ethereum is getting strained and overloaded with hundreds of tokens and dApps. The most famous example has been the CryptoKittes DApp, which nearly brought Ethereum to a halt when a huge number of users started downloading and using the decentralized application.

A long term viability was required for the company to continue operating and providing its services without worry of network slowing down. NEM, an alternative with more scalability, higher level of security, lower transaction costs yet higher transaction per time and increased corporate features was the perfect solution.

David Greishaber, CIO IP Gold said, “The proven scalability, support, and security of the NEM blockchain offers the most future-proof platform for the IPG token and IP Gold community. NEM’s peer-to-peer architecture, proof of importance (POI) algorithm, encryption and multisig account support made it the obvious choice for IP Gold’s long-term goals.”

IPG Token TGE

IP Gold is already holding public token distribution event and has decided to give a bonus of 50% for the first 24 hours (3rd July) of the switch. Currently the TGE is in progress and the exchange rate has been established at 1 IPG = 1 USD. The bonus means that for every dollar backed, investors will receive half a IPG. The event is seeing 13,000,000,000 IPG up for grabs and will continue till 10th of July.

About IP Gold

Of the many digital assets, IP addresses have turned out to be the most valuable. IP Gold is a digital asset company that specializes in monetizing this lucrative sector. IP are regularly leased and traded on the international market. IP Gold takes that simple concept and leverages the blockchain technology to not only streamline the marketplace, but reduce overheads and bring efficiencies to the system.

With 4,300,000 IPv4 IP addresses possible, less than 4% are left available. The increased demand of IPs and the dwindling demand has led to an increased value of the internet addresses. IP Gold banks on this and allows anyone with ownership to an IP that is not being currently used to rent out and earn from it, which would be otherwise not generating an income.

For more information on the IP asset management platform, visit their website: https://ip.gold/

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.