Day: August 12, 2018

“Facebase” might’ve been a fictional company name that you heard after David Marcus of Facebook joined Coinbase’s board, as speculation was rampant regarding the potential for collaboration between the two firms. But for now, it seems that any chance of collaboration between the two companies may be ending, as the executive of the social media firm has just resigned from his spot on the Coinbase board.

Is It Time To Say Goodbye To Facebase and Coinbook?

As per a Business Insider report, David Marcus, a former vice president of Facebook Messenger, has announced that his 8-month tenure on Coinbase’s board is sadly coming to an end. However, this move didn’t come without reason, with a Coinbase representative stating that this move “was made to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

“What conflict of interest?” you may ask.

As NewsBTC reported in May, Facebook launched its first-ever blockchain initiative, removing Marcus from his role at Messenger to become the go-to guy for this new division. Following this announcement, Facebook went quiet, with this unexpected foray into blockchain moving to the back of everyone’s mind. But with this move, it has become apparent that there may be something exciting in the works, and that it may be time for the Facebook and Coinbase overlap to end.

Speaking with Business Insider via a Facebook representative, Marcus alluded to the “conflict of interest,” stating:

“Because of the new group I’m setting up at Facebook around blockchain, I’ve decided it was appropriate for me to resign from the Coinbase board… I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the talent and execution the (Coinbase) team has demonstrated during my tenure, and I wish the team all the success it deserves going forward.”

Speculation raged on what could have caused this “conflict of interest,” with some postulating that Facebook was going to create a platform that rivaled what Coinbase has built up.

But in a separate statement to CNBC, a Facebook spokesperson noted that Marcus’s decision to leave Coinbase was “to avoid the appearance of conflict, rather than because of an actual conflict.” So for now, it may be the right time to say goodbye to Facebase, Coinbook, or any Facebook-backed cryptocurrency platform that would potentially compete with Coinbase.

Nonetheless, it has become clear that Facebook may be finally welcoming cryptocurrencies and blockchain into its exclusive circle.

Facebook May Be Warming Up To Cryptocurrencies And Blockchain 

Surprisingly enough, Marcus’ step away from Coinbase comes only hours after it was revealed that Facebook held a meeting with Stellar, the firm behind the fittingly named Stellar Network. While Facebook has stayed quiet about this occurrence, many believe that this shows that the $500 billion company may create its own blockchain network, that will be focused on bringing decentralized solutions to its multi-billion person customer base.

Insider sources say that Facebook and Stellar have discussed the formulation of a partnership to fork the Stellar Network, where the social media giant would get its own chain to build whatever it may please. As it stands, however, a representative from the Menlo Park-based firm has denied the claim that it would build on Stellar-based technology. Although it remains to be seen what plans Facebook truly holds for its blockchain branch, any step in the right direction is welcome.

In related news, this resignation only comes a few weeks after Facebook reinstated cryptocurrency-related ads, approving Coinbase as an approved advertiser. This move, coupled with the others aforementioned, go to show that Facebook is likely preparing for the incoming incursion of blockchain technologies into legacy systems.

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One of the bigger mysteries in the cryptocurrency world is the matter of who Satoshi Nakamoto is. The infamous creator of Bitcoin and blockchain, Nakamoto is still an unknown individual or group to the rest of the world. A new campaign on Russia’s Boomstarter aims to collect capital to reveal Nakamoto’s identity once and for all.

Another Pointless Search

Although it is intriguing, the Satoshi Nakamoto identity mystery is not a pressing issue. It would be nice to know who is behind Bitcoin and blockchain technology, but it seems highly unlikely their identity will ever be revealed. Nor should it really, as it will not change the current shape and direction of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Why people continue to try and find out Nakamoto’s identity is unclear. It seems people are always hopeful to unravel a mystery, even when it serves absolutely no purpose. The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto was never meant to be unveiled to the public; otherwise, we would have learned it many years ago.

A new campaign on Boomstarter indicates there are quite a few people interested in finding out who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. These people are convinced that “Satoshi needs to be found”. This cult-like obsession raises a lot of questions. The future of cryptocurrency will not hinge on who Satoshi Nakamoto is in real life. It is unclear why some people think otherwise.

This campaign was organized by an international group of self-professed crypto enthusiasts calling themselves #FindSatoshi. While discovering the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto would help bring a bit more legitimacy to the cryptocurrency industry as a whole, there will always be rumors that Bitcoin and altcoins are used for fraud and money laundering. Those misconceptions will remain common for a very long time and may only be resolved by introducing proper cryptocurrency regulation.

It’s questionable whether this fundraising effort will be successful. A total of 15 million rubles will need to be collected, and 3 million have been raised so far. There is still a long way to go, and this amount might not be sufficient to yield any real evidence of who Satoshi Nakamoto may have been all this time.

The team has already announced several investigation agencies that it plans to partner with. The agencies are located in Japan, the US, the UK, and Russia. It is possible Satoshi Nakamoto is not a resident of any of these countries, but we will most likely never find out. People have been trying and failing to identify the Bitcoin creator for years, and there is zero reason to think this latest effort will be any different.

Leading social media site Facebook, which has billions of users, may be on the path to launch its own cryptocurrency, indicates the recent tidings.

Earlier this year, Facebook created a blockchain research team led by David Marcus, with a goal of leveraging blockchain technology, and possibly cryptocurrency, across its social network platform. David Marcus is well known for taking Facebook Messenger from a relatively small app to one of the most widely used chat apps in the world. Also, David Marcus has deep ties in the cryptocurrency world, he was on the Coinbase Board of Directors. Coinbase is the largest and most popular cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in the United States.

Now David Marcus has stepped down from the Coinbase Board of Directors. One astute Twitter commenter, Gagan Jain, said “This is like Eric Schmidt stepping down from Apple’s board prior to Android’s launch”. Indeed, stepping down from Coinbase’s Board of Directors ensures no conflict of interest if Facebook launches their own cryptocurrency. Now Coinbase can add Facebook’s cryptocurrency when it launches, massively increasing the spread of Facebook’s cryptocurrency.

Further, according to anonymous sources, Facebook’s blockchain research team has met with Stellar to discuss about forking the Stellar blockchain to create the Facebook cryptocurrency, similar to how the Kik messaging app forked Stellar to create the Kin crypto tokens. These anonymous sources say Facebook’s blockchain research team has also met with other cryptocurrency projects.

Stellar would be the best choice for a social cryptocurrency, since Stellar has extremely low fees, far less than 0.1 penny per transaction, allowing for micropayments. Stellar is highly scalable, so Lumen or any cryptocurrency based on Stellar can handle tremendous amounts of transactions without a significant rise in fees. Therefore, Stellar based cryptocurrencies are excellent for micropayments, which is preferred on social media. People can send each other 1 penny of FacebookCoin, or whatever it will be called, without losing any to fees.

Due to the huge user base of Facebook, numbering over 1 billion, a Facebook cryptocurrency would become extremely popular and has the potential to become one of the top cryptocurrencies quickly. Perhaps the social media giant has finally decided to launch a cryptocurrency after its stock market cap declined USD 100 billion in one night recently, motivating them to try and make money in any way possible rather than ignore cryptocurrency. Launching a Facebook cryptocurrency would easily and quickly bring billions of dollars of profits to Facebook, something they need after the large hit to their stock.

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Derivatives have begun gaining a lot of traction in the world of cryptocurrency. They are interesting trading instruments, all things considered, although not every cryptocurrency is suited for them. This is why BitMEX is exploring the quanto option, which is a very different type of derivative.

The Quanto Concept

In some cases, the financial sector requires providers to step off the beaten derivatives path and launch a slightly altered version. A quanto is a derivative whose underlying asset is denominated in a currency which differs from that in which the instrument’s settlement occurs. Quantos are not that uncommon, although they have not existed in the cryptocurrency world for that long.

BitMEX’s Conundrum

One of the main reasons why BitMEX decided to introduce a quanto was the growing demand for Ether-based derivatives. It is not as simple as creating a Bitcoin derivative linked to the US dollar. Although this may seem strange on paper, the team has explained their reasoning behind this unusual development.

Instead of offering an inverse-style derivative featuring Ether, the team tapped into the quanto model. According to BitMEX, the “various exploits of popular Ethereum multisig smart contracts” do not allow for custodying Ether. That is very unfortunate, although companies such as BitMEX must limit their risk as much as possible.

Blaming the Ethereum protocol for terrible smart contract coding may be a bit of a stretch. Even so, the company is offering exposure to Ether through a quanto derivative for which Bitcoin is used as the margin and PNL currency. It is a viable ETHUSD contract, but it works very differently.

Looking Ahead

It will be interesting to see how the launch of this ETHUSD quanto derivative is received. Contracts pay out 0.0000001 BTC per USD, which could be of great appeal to speculators. Unfortunately for Ethereum, its price has been declining very rapidly over the past few days, making this a far less appealing market.

Listen to the 10 August 2018 Bitcoin News Radio Show below.

Follow the Bitcoin News Radio Show on Anchor, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Pocket Casts, and Breaker. We broadcast a new episode every day, covering the most important topics in the crypto, Bitcoin, and blockchain world!

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The market picture: virtually all top 100 cryptos see green on the day, though total market cap remains close to its 3-month low

Various projects aim to decentralize the internet as we know it today. Whether or not any of them will succeed in doing so is very difficult to predict. There are a lot of reasons why this will not work, although the idea proposed by Cardstack seems rather intriguing.

The Cardstack Initiative

Decentralizing the internet can be achieved in many ways. A lot of people believe blockchain technology can play a big role in this regard. Cardstack is a new experience layer which makes blockchain both suitable and scalable. Using this technology, developers can create new decentralized software to revolutionize the internet.

How Does it Work?

Creating a multi-tiered layer infrastructure for the decentralized internet will not be easy. Cardstack envisions an infrastructure consisting of three layers. The bottom layer will be Ethereum’s blockchain, which makes some sense. On top of that will be the second layer, known for scalable payments and governance. It combines the ecosystem token and the aggregation protocol.

To top it all off, there is an app framework – known as the Cardstack Hub – combined with to-be-developed next-gen blockchain applications. Unlocking the potential of these layers will be quite challenging. Cardstack allows end users to mix and match features from different apps without needing to have multiple subscriptions.

The Cardstack Framework is an SDK that allows developers to create a new generation of blockchain applications. It will be facilitated by the Cardstack Hub, which transfers data and value across blockchains and the cloud alike. Having multi-blockchain compatibility will undoubtedly introduce a lot of positive changes for developers.

The CARD Token

Unsurprisingly, Cardstack will have its own native token, known as CARD. It is not a traditional cryptocurrency, but it will help create a sustainable marketplace. The token will primarily be used to reward developers in a fair manner. CARD will also form the backbone of smart contracts between users and their chosen apps.

The Road Ahead

Although Cardstack is still in development, it seems things are progressing nicely. More competition in the blockchain world can only be considered a good thing, although decentralizing the entire internet may be a bridge too far for a lot of developers at this stage.

Cryptocurrency trading surged in Turkey on Friday with the news that the country’s struggling fiat currency lira plunged in value on the money markets.

More concerns about President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s economic policies and Turkey’s debt level sent the lira spiralling as global markets reflected their concerns about the state of that country’s economy. This was good news however for cryptocurrency as trading volumes at three of Turkey’s main crypto exchanges Paribu, Btcturk and Koinim witnessed a jump of 100% in just 24 hrs.

Turkey has experienced a bear market this year but terms of its relationship with Bitcoin and other cryptos, it’s been very upbeat, as one local university student observed on the weekend, “Every day there are new [bitcoin] exchanges coming up in Turkey.”

User Bitmov, an Instanbul marketing professional has been using bitcoin for over year to make overseas purchases and has now become his families crypto advisor. He commented:

“I started personally trading crypto 1.5 years ago because of the weakness of the Turkish lira, and fear of the political, and financial, status of the Turkish government. Cryptocurrency makes me feel much safer…If your national currency is falling like this … or you don’t trust centralized currencies and banks, what can you do? You should be your own bank, and I’m sure people all around the world will realize that”

This attitude is frequently reflected in other countries where unstable currencies are driving nationals towards a more stable kind of currency, such as in Venezuela and parts of Africa. Another such cryptocurrency user is Cardiologist from the capital Ankara, Bunyamin Yavuz who says he’s completely lost his trust of banks and now buys crypto such as XRP, Monero, and Stellar lumens. Yavuz only holds 10 percent of his currency in Lira, but 30 percent in cryptocurrencies.

There have been talks of a national cryptocurrency in Turkey for some time, following in the footsteps of the Venezuelan Petro, but this could hurt local exchanges if Bitcoin continues to become stronger and positions itself as an alternative.

Iran has gone the same way, although looking at a government-run crypto. But their current crypto trading position is different due to the use peer to peer transactions, overseas sanctions, and local government restrictions. Greater freedom exists in Turkey for those who wish to trade in Bitcoin. Concerns are growing though that the Turkish government may begin to take a harder line on cryptocurrency trading similar to that of its middle eastern neighbor.

The fall in the lira may be the first of many, given Erdoğan’s threats of an “economic war “ with the US. Although he has appealed for his country’s support for the currency, asking Turkish nationals to buy up the ailing lira for any other currency they own. It’s unlikely to be Bitcoin.

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Courtesy: Coindesk

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Cryptocurrency users are some of the biggest threats to the future of Bitcoin and altcoins. Although that may not necessarily be a popular opinion, a recent FUD campaign targeted at the KuCoin exchange shows how some users are purposely destroying this industry from within. It’s a very worrisome development, although there isn’t much that can be done about it at this time.

The KuCoin FUD Campaign

It is evident that cryptocurrency speculators, investors, and holders are not too pleased with the way things are going in this industry. That is no reason to purposefully spread FUD regarding certain companies or service providers. It is unclear what is driving the current negative campaign against the KuCoin exchange and its public image, yet it could do a fair bit of damage if even a few people fall for this misinformation.

According to the misinformation campaign, KuCoin’s Hong Kong offices are completely deserted. Based on that information, users need to be very wary of depositing funds to this exchange and should get their money out as soon as possible. Even so, this is not exactly a new revelation, and there is very little for users of the KuCoin exchange to be at all concerned about at this stage.

Those familiar with KuCoin will shrug off this blatant FUD with relative ease. The company set up headquarters in Singapore quite some time ago, which easily explains why there is no one around in Hong Kong. This was documented on the company’s blog in April of this year, as they shared their location and pictures of their office.

That office looks nothing like what the disgruntled user claims to be KuCoin’s offices in Hong Kong, further indicating that this is an attempt to spread misinformation. While it is not uncommon for cryptocurrency companies to share information which doesn’t ring true in the end, there is no obvious indication that KuCoin is deceiving users or doing anything wrong here.

All of this raises the question as to why someone is spreading such wrong information meant to purposefully harm KuCoin and its users. It is possible this user is a former KuCoin Shares investor who has lost a lot of money. It is true the KCS price has gone through a very steep decline, but so have most other cryptocurrencies and assets.

For the cryptocurrency industry, “revelations” such as this one are a big problem. This industry already has a terrible reputation among average people on the street. FUD campaigns like this one will not help matters much, and they are a legitimate threat to the future of cryptocurrency as a whole. If users were less reliant on exchanges to store money for longer periods, there would be absolutely no cause for concern.

This week in the Hodler’s Digest, Starbucks corrects media hype — you cannot buy your favorite Frapp with BTC — and the SEC postpones a BTC ETF decision until this fall