Day: August 7, 2018

Bitcoin mining firm Bitmain is now valued at $15 billion after closing a pre-IPO funding round with backing from tech giants Tencent and Softbank

For those passionate about cryptocurrency who either got burnt out during this year’s bear market, or do not have the means or confidence to make financial investments, there are still numerous ways individuals within the sphere are accumulating crypto and earning money each day. Here are 10 of the best methods that are utilized today.

10. Crypto Gaming

Skilled (and often lucky) gamers within the space have previously taken home millions of dollars in Ethereum and other currencies. For those with a deep pocket of tokens, games like the PoWH network can warrant massive paychecks (or account for significant losses). On the other end, games like Huntercoin (HUC) are free to play and award players thousands of dollars in crypto each day.

9. Participate in Revenue Sharing Platforms

Several projects within the space have seen huge popularity due to their revenue sharing incentives. Participants on these platforms can earn up to thousands of dollars, simply for being active and worthwhile members of the community. Steemit is the largest example, with numerous top earners taking home six (and even seven) figure paychecks yearly.

8. Experiment with Trading Bots

While there is certainly a learning curve and significant risk associated with automated trading programs, some traders have been quite successful. Check out our list of the top Bitcoin trading bots to find a few to explore.

7. Create and Monetize Content

Like any community, the traffic of cryptocurrency enthusiasts is easily monetized. Network explorers, web wallets, news sites (like this one) and other worthwhile services can easily gain traction, which then translates to earnings when advertisement and other monetization methods are applied.

6. Become a Project Ambassador

As more and more projects come to fruition, many have experimented with ambassador programs to grow their exposure and expand their reach. Ambassadors are typically active community members willing to put on presentations and meet with relevant individuals. Ambassadors can see very large salaries as well as travel to conferences internationally.

5. Speculative Mining

While mining is now primarily only profitable to large-scale operations, speculative mining (spec mining for short) represents a subset of mining that is possible at the individual level and can reap massive payouts. The practice refers to mining new and under-the-radar cryptocurrencies that have not yet been added to exchanges and are very simple to mine. When they gain in popularity and trading volume, spec miners see massive payoffs.

4. Work in the Space

Even though markets have suffered throughout 2018, demand for blockchain jobs only continues to grow! Freelance work is readily available, and full-time positions are also in high demand. Niche listing sites like Cryptojobs and broader alternatives like LinkedIn are great sources for finding work. Six-figure salaries and ownership stakes are the norm for full-time employees in the space.

3. Host a Conference

There are numerous cryptocurrency and blockchain conferences that take place worldwide, and most prove to be very successful for their hosts. Tickets for most conferences typically cost a minimum of US$1,000, and sometimes much more. The largest conference, Consensus, raked in US$17 million for its week-long event in May 2018, setting records with over 8,500 in attendance.

2. Bounty Hunt

Bounty hunting represents perhaps the most accessible method for earning in the space. Almost every project runs its own bounty campaign, which rewards users for simple activities and microtasks like signing up for websites, reacting on social media, and posting on forums. Full-time bounty hunters, like other full-time employees, can see huge paychecks, and the work is relatively simple. The Bounty0x and Bitcointalk bounty sections are two good places to get in touch with bounty campaigns.

1. Run an ICO

Unarguably the most profitable work in cryptocurrency, at this point in time, is the orchestration of a successful ICO. ICOs already account for almost half of the entire IPO market and continue to grow, with record-setters like EOS’s US$4 billion ICO paving the way. Of course, it is important to recognize that ICOs should be used only to fund legitimate initiatives, carried out by individuals with the skills to manifest these ideas. ICOs should not be fraudulent and should abide by pertinent jurisdictions, so as not to experience an inevitable demise when law enforcement knocks on the front door (as has happened numerous times already)!

Here’s why McAfee’s Bitfi wallet isn’t as “unhackable” as it thought it was

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Here’s how the Chamber of Digital Commerce suggests to facilitate the “responsible growth” of the crypto market

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Brian Norgard, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of popular dating app Tinder and an early stage investor in SpaceX and Tesla, has stated that millennials prefer to invest in crypto rather than reserve currencies and conventional assets.

Citing a report from CB Insights, Norgard listed the following as being “Millennial investing patterns & preferences”:

1. Low fees
2. Desire for home ownership
3. Preferred adoption of simple, fun & useful UI/UX
4. Mobile 1st
5. Depleting trust of large financial institutions
6. Gamified solutions
7. Crypto

Mobile First and Lack of Trust in Banks Lead to Crypto

As demonstrated by the meteoric rise of Alibaba’s Ant Financial, which recently secured a $150 billion valuation in its latest funding round, conventional means of payment are rapidly being replaced by more efficient, cheap, and robust mobile solutions.

Ant Financial operates a mobile fintech network in China called Alipay that enables anyone with a smartphone to send and receive payments, seamlessly transacting at both online and offline stores. Already, Alipay has garnered 520 million users, more than 34 percent of China’s entire population, surpassing the market valuation of some of the world’s largest banks such as BBVA, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.

Fintech startups and network operators adjust to the needs of millennial users and consumers because they acknowledge the types of services young users desire. Millennials prefer to carry out any finance-related task using a smartphone, and the inability of major banks to compete with innovative fintech startups have left banks behind in mobile fintech development.

Similar to the viewpoint of former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, the shift from cash-based systems to mobile financial networks could pave a natural pathway to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, leading both consumers and merchants to adopt cryptos that are purely digital and decentralized.

“If you go through that fiat currency where they say this is worth what it’s worth because I, the government, says it is, why couldn’t you have a consensus currency?” said Blankfein at the Economic Club of New York conference.

The adoption of crypto by millennials is expected to increase at an exponential rate in the next few years, fueled by the collaborative efforts of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Starbucks, and Microsoft, the world’s largest stock market, coffee retailer, and technology conglomerate, respectively.

Last week, the three corporations disclosed their intent to improve the usability of cryptocurrencies as a legitimate and alternative payment method, responding to the growing demand for crypto from both millennials and casual users.

Maria Smith, vice president of partnerships and payments for Starbucks, emphasized that the company has allocated a significant portion of its resources to remain at the forefront of mobile financial technology development over the past few years, noting that Starbucks is committed to expanding payment options for alternatives like crypto.

“As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars for use at Starbucks. As a leader in Mobile Pay to our more than 15 million Starbucks Rewards members, Starbucks is committed to innovation for expanding payment options for our customers,” Smith said.

Mainstream Crypto Adoption

Howard Schultz, the former Chairman and CEO of Starbucks and a Bitcoin skeptic, previously said that crypto adoption, even amongst millennials, can only materialize if large-scale retailers and merchants begin to integrate digital assets and enable the usage of crypto to the public.

A continuous increase in the demand for crypto as a store of value and investment will convince more retailers such as Starbucks to develop a better infrastructure for cryptocurrency users, allowing digital assets to emerge as a leading asset class.

The U.S. SEC has delayed a decision on a proposed bitcoin ETF, pushing its final determination ahead by more than a month.

Market intelligence firm Juniper Research has published the results of its blockchain study, with the findings showing financial institutions are set to save USD 27 billion annually by 2030 should they utilize the technology.

The cost reduction for cross-border settlement transactions is shown to be reduced by over 11% when deployed on blockchain.

#Blockchain deployments to save #Banks more than $27bn annually by 2030, with cost reductions not just in #Payments processing and reconciliation, but in treasury operations and compliance. #Fintech #Banking

Read more in our press release: https://t.co/pNWXeopbjO pic.twitter.com/pYk2PYsISQ

— Juniper Research (@juniperresearch) August 1, 2018

The Future of Blockchain: Key Vertical Opportunities & Deployment Strategies 2018-2030 study also investigates alternative areas where the technology could create more cost-effective practices, including in treasury operations. The savings applicable for banking departments varies; in areas of compliance, automated money laundering checks via blockchain could create a 50% price decrease in just a few years.

Internal banking legacy systems that will most likely be required to run alongside any blockchain tech services may, however, cause the savings process to take several years to be fully implemented. Estimated service cost savings are not expected to reach USD 1 million per annum until 2024.

The full research paper can be purchased from Juniper online.

5 industries benefiting from blockchain

Besides the banking industry, the report notes the benefits of utilizing blockchain technology in a number of other sectors, including food exports and trades, as has been seen in a number of cases already including in the Australian sugarcane industry. The report estimates a nearly 50% cut in the food industry’s costs associated with fraud.

Juniper Research has also released a free white paper detailing five industries that will benefit from blockchain, including land registry, healthcare, and the automotive sector, entitled ‘5 Industries That Will Fuel the Blockchain Boom’.

It splits the research into eight key regions, including the key challenges each industry will face on the way to adoption and the top movers and shakers of the blockchain sector in 2018.

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Around 75% of domestic respondents marked having no interest in investing in cryptocurrencies, according to a new report from KB Financial Group

A member of the Ukraine Central Election Commission is investigating the use of blockchain technology in elections with a local NEM Foundation group.

On August 1, researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch released a new paper in the Science Translational Medicine journal, detailing their successful attempt at transplanting lab-grown artificial lungs into living pigs.

Bioengineered Organs Could Save 20 Individuals a Day

According to the Unified Network for Organ Sharding, more than 20 individuals die on a daily basis waiting for organ transplants, and a new individual is added to the organ transplant list every ten minutes. Due to the obvious lack of supply of human organs, thousands of people across the globe die every year, and the situation cannot be improved without breakthroughs in the commercial development of artificial organs.

This month, the University of Texas Medical Branch revealed that artificial bioengineered lungs that its team of researchers developed were successfully transplanted into pigs, and throughout the two-month post-transplant observation period, pigs equipped with artificial lab-grown lungs demonstrated no signs of rejection and issues in their immune systems.

The study and the successful transplant of lab-engineered lungs into pigs is a monumental breakthrough in bioengineering, specifically because of the complexity of lungs’ structure. The complex structure of vessels and blood flow in the lungs has always posed a problem for researchers and bioengineers.

“Lungs are complex organs to engineer: They contain multiple specialized cell types in extracellular matrix with a unique architecture that must maintain compliance during respiration. Nichols et al. tackled the challenges of vascular perfusion, recellularization, and engraftment of tissue-engineered lungs in a clinically relevant pig model. Nanoparticle and hydrogel delivery of growth factors promoted cell adhesion to whole decellularized pig lung scaffolds,” the researchers explained.

Acknowledging the complex systems present in both human and pig lungs, the Texas University researchers utilized a unique approach for creating lungs. Rather than building their lungs from scratch by attempting to replicate vessel structures, the researchers created lung scaffolds by removing cells and blood from pig lungs using sugar and detergent.

The researchers then placed pig lung skeletons, still equipped with vessel structures and proteins, in a tank containing a mix of nutrients, and re-added cells from the pig receiving the transplant lab-grown lungs. After 30 days, the researchers placed the lungs inside two pigs.

The two pairs of bioengineered lungs adapted to the pigs relatively fast, quicker than the expectations of the researchers. Within merely two weeks, the transplanted lungs were able to establish strong blood vessel networks, allowing the two pigs to adjust to the lungs without rejection or damage to their immune systems.

The researchers noted:

“There was no indication of transplant rejection. BEL continued to develop after transplant and did not require addition of exogenous growth factors to drive cell proliferation or lung and vascular tissue development. The sterile BEL was seeded and colonized by the bacterial community of the native lung.”

3D Printing

The process of manufacturing the artificial lungs tested by the University of Texas requires the usage of ping lung skeletons, and the supply of the lung scaffolds are limited. Hence, at a commercial level, while this experiment was monumental, pig scaffolds cannot be used to produce hundreds of lab-grown lungs on a daily basis.

Since 2016, researchers have explored the possibility of utilizing 3D printing in manufacturing lab-grown organs with precision, which could allow researchers to replicate the vessel structures and blood flow of sample pig lungs.

Ending the day on a high is quite unusual for the cryptocurrency industry. It would appear a small recovery process is taking place for most coins, albeit the XRP price is still on the decline as of right now. It seems unlikely that digital asset will see any form of recovery in the coming hours or days.

XRP Price Continues to Struggle

It is evident the current cryptocurrency market momentum is not looking all that great. Although Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most top altcoins are going through a small uptrend right now, it remains to be seen if this can be turned into long-term momentum first and foremost. For other assets, the going is getting even tougher, especially where the XRP price is concerned.

Over the past 24 hours, the XRP price has lost a surprising 2.93% of its value. Although this is not the biggest setback for any cryptocurrency or digital asset in history, it is still a bit disconcerting considering how the other markets are evolving. This pushes the XRP value down to $0.408, and it may even dip below $0.4 in the coming days.

Compared to Bitcoin, things are not looking all that great for XRP either. The asset lost nearly 5% compared to Bitcoin over the past 24 hours, further adding to the negative pressure on the market. It is possible the impending decision by the SEC as to whether or not XRP is a security is effectively weighing heavily on the market right now.

One thing working in XRP’s favor is how the overall trading volume is not suffering all that much. Although $243.6m is not necessarily something to be too excited about, it is still a relatively normal figure under the current circumstances. If this volume remains stable, the XRP price may see some positive signs of life later this week.

The current lading exchange for XRP trading volume is Coinsuper, albeit it is excluded from CoinMarketCap. Other than this platform, there’s Bitbank-s JPY market, Binance’s BTC pair, OKEx’s USDT market, and Huobi’s BTC pair in the top five. Prices are relatively the same across all exchanges, which means there are no arbitrage opportunities to speak of.

How the XRP price will evolve exactly, is always difficult to predict. Although the momentum does not favor this digital asset by any means, it is possible things turn around when people least expect it. Considering how there is just one fiat currency pair in the top five right now, there isn’t much fresh capital entering the market as of right now.