Day: August 16, 2018

Ted Rogers, the chairman of Xapo, a popular Bitcoin wallet and vault operator, has said that the lower price range of Bitcoin presents a better opportunity to purchase the digital asset.

In a recent statement, Rogers said:

“We could be in the midst of the extinction-level event for ‘cryptoassets’ that many maximalists have predicted. 90%+ of CoinMarketCap list will disappear eventually – might as well happen now. Meantime, lower BTC price means incredible opportunity to buy more Bitcoin”

Why is Rogers Very Optimistic?

Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Xapo, the go-to vault service provider for large-scale retail traders and institutions, has been holding more than $10 billion worth of Bitcoin in its vaults in Switzerland, more than the amount of deposits 98 percent of banks in the US hold.

In an interview, Ryan Radloff of CoinShares told Bloomberg that he personally holds more than $500 million worth of Bitcoin with Xapo and all of the large-scale inivestors in the cryptocurrency sector hold Bitcoin in the secure vaults of Xapo to protect their holdings.

In early 2018, Xapo brought in Peter Najarian, a veteran banker at UBS Group AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group, to bring in more institutional investors into the cryptocurrency space with trusted custodian solutions, vault systems, and secure storage services.

Najarian, who has served the traditional finance sector many decades, said that a wave of institutional investors are quietly planning to enter the cryptocurrency market, echoing the sentiment of billionaire investor MIke Novogratz.

“A fraction of that kind of institutional money flowing into the space would be a tidal wave,” he said.

The optimism towards the long-term trend of Bitcoin publicly expressed by Rogers likely comes from his understanding of the market and the expected entrance of institutional investors from the finance sector.

The vast majority of large holders and so-called “whales” in the Bitcoin market are holding large sums of capital with Xapo and other trusted third parties with the intent of holding their money in the dominant cryptocurrency for long periods of time.

The bull run of 2017 was triggered by the entrance of speculators, not institutional investors nor large-scale retail traders in public financial markets. Consequently, as speculators exited the market by early 2018, the market crashed, ultimately recording a 78 percent correction.

Still, the market is where it was at in October of 2017, and most large holders of cryptocurrencies still remain in the market with companies like Xapo and Coinbase facilitating the demand.

The Next Wave Will be Big

As the cryptocurrency sector has done throughout the past eight years, the market will see the same trend it has seen in 2012, 2014, and 2016. After every 70 to 90 percent correction followed a mid to long-term rally.

If the next rally is fueled by the entrance of institutional investors and as Novogratz explained, Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) amongst institutional investors, the level of demand and interest generated towards the cryptocurrency sector will likely be unprecedented.

“It won’t go there ($20 trillion) right away. What is going to happen is, one of these intrepid pension funds, somebody who is a market leader, is going to say, you know what? We’ve got custody, Goldman Sachs is involved, Bloomberg has an index I can track my performance against, and they’re going to buy. And all of the sudden, the second guy buys. The same FOMO that you saw in retail [will be demonstrated by institutional investors],” Novogratz said.

Featured Image From Shutterstock

The post Xapo Chairman Optimistic: Lower Bitcoin Price Means Better Opportunity to Buy it appeared first on NewsBTC.

With Ethereum’s scaling problems reaching an inflection point this week, could coins using Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, or a version thereof, be correlating more in price action with BTC? 

San Francisco cryptocurrency exchange giant Coinbase has acquired a local startup which offers decentralized identity solutions to help consolidate its login and verification processes.

The firm, Distributed Systems Inc, according to Coinbase project manager B Byrne, was selected by the exchange to utilize blockchain for verification purposes and, thereby, offer more safety to clients. He commented:

“Blockchain technology that powers cryptocurrencies offers a new way to let us all be “verified” everywhere we go on the internet, feeling safer about our interactions with others and opening the door to the experiences that require trust.”

Distributed Systems Inc, started in 2015, was established to develop an identity standard for Dapps called the Clear Protocol with the startup raising USD 1.7 million in its seed round. The company was about to start another round this year in the hope to raise between USD 4 million to USD 8 million until they struck the seal with Coinbase.

DS SEO Nikhil Srinivasan said that “no one really understood what we’re building” but added that once that Coinbase Ventures had seen the tech’s KYC potential, “they quickly tried to move to find a way to acquire us”.

With DS now on board, Byrne feels that a more secure proof of identity protocol can be established using the new company’s technology. He suggested that this would:

“…let you prove that you own an identity, or that you have a relationship with the Social Security Administration, without making a copy of that identity.”

Coinbase plans to initiate the new system called “Login with Coinbase” with care, with user anonymity and privacy remaining a fundamental consideration of any changes it makes to its current verification system.

This is not the first time that Coinbase has acquired companies in order to enhance its operating performance, having added Keystone Capital Corp, Venovate Marketplace and Digital Wealth, in order to satisfy the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements for broker registration.

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bitcoinnewscom

Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com at https://t.me/bconews

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

The post Coinbase Acquires San Francisco Company for Decentralized Login Tech appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

NEM, which is an out-of-the-box enterprise-grade blockchain platform, recently announced its partnership with Unibright, a blockchain-agnostic integration framework. The partnership will entail the addition of NEM-oriented code generation to Unibright’s framework. At the same time, the collaboration will add Unibright to the NEMsp Program which enables their developers to get blockchain training and certification via the Global NEMsp Network. With the specialized technical skills, Unibright’s team will earn the proficiency to integrate clients on NEM and scale, regardless of the sector, experience, and specialization.

Details of the Partnership

As part of the agreement, NEM will be added as a target of the Unibright automated code generation platform. The NEM adapters will be included in the Unibright Integration Platform, making it possible to connect NEM architecture to the existing IT landscape. And, Unibright will be included as an official NEM service partner, following the training and certification process. In the future, both NEM and Unibright will be working together on joint projects, proof of concepts, and case studies with industry clients and other partners.

What the Leadership Had to Say

The President of NEM, Kristof Van de Rek said that the partnership with Unibright will place the development and deployment of NEMsp network on a higher level by enabling automatic code generation. The NEMsp network is a repeatable and scalable program and these collaborations will expedite the adoption of NEM on a global scale while creating value for its partners. Companies implementing the NEM blockchain will not be needed any technical staff to create applications. The synergy between NEM and Unibright makes the partnership a “perfect fit”, and is the beginning of a mutual and beneficial relationship.

The CEO of Unibright, Marten Jung also commented on the issue. He said that he is convinced that enterprise clients would rely on the blockchain platforms, which offered them a robust base, scalability, and fast pilot-to-solution outlook. He said that NEM delivers on all those areas in a convincing manner. The CEO concluded by saying that they were looking forward to filling the partnership with life.

How the Partnership is Panning Out

The Unibright team has completed their training under NEM Solutions Architect at Unibright’s main office in Bingen, Germany. They will soon receive the certification after the test project developed by the team is audited by the NEM team, to be a working solution. Once certified, Unibright will be officially recognized as NEM Service Partner.

Advantages of the Partnership

Launched in March 2015, NEM is an out-of-the-box enterprise-grade blockchain platform with industry-leading blockchain features like multi-sig account contract, naming system, customizable assets, an Eigentrust++ reputation system, encrypted messaging and more. With NEM, companies using legacy systems can plug and play NEM solutions in no time. Through Unibright’s unified framework, NEM’s foothold in the mainstream crypto-ecosystem will be further strengthened. The multichain solution will further encourage blockchain adoption among the industries, helping them switch between the protocols to find the one that meets their needs and integrate it into their existing IT systems.

What do you think about this NEM-Unibright partnership? Leave us your thoughts in the comment section below.

The post Unibright and NEM Announce Strategic Partnership appeared first on NewsBTC.

A move past a key resistance at $6,675 would confirm a short-term bearish-to-bullish trend change in bitcoin.

Five crypto exchanges and two crypto dealers get green light from Thai SEC

Following the release of a new regulatory framework for crypto businesses and blockchain projects, major cities in South Korea have started to build regional policies to fuel the growth of cryptocurrency-related companies.

Country’s Second Biggest City Wants to be Like Zug

This month, Oh Keo-don, the mayor of Busan, the second largest city in South Korea behind Seoul from the country’s ruling party, has stated that the regional government of Busan is focused on building the next “Crypto Valley” of the world in South Korea, inspired by the success of Zug, Switzerland.

Mayor Oh emphasized that Zug already has more than 2,500 blockchain projects and produced over 11,000 blockchain-related job throughout the past two years, noting that Busan could create a vibrant cryptocurrency industry with friendly regulations and policies.

Since mid-2017, the demand for cryptocurrencies from investors in the traditional finance market of South Korea has increased substantially, and the awareness of digital assets by the general population has improved significantly, primarily due to the resilience of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

In December of last year, the demand and interest for cryptocurrencies peaked as the price of Bitcoin surpassed $20,000 in major markets like the US and $25,000 in South Korea. But, as the cryptocurrency market endured a 70 percent correction, digital assets earned a negative reputation as a risky and highly volatile asset class.

Over time, most investors in South Korea gained more confidence in cryptocurrencies because of their ability to recover from a steep 75 percent decline and achieve stability at lower levels. Local financial authorities including the Financial Services Commission (FSC) also expressed their enthusiasm towards the newly found stability in the cryptocurrency market and the elimination of the Kimchi Premium in South Korean markets.

“The government’s practical policies led the ‘Kimchi Premium’ to disappear in South Korea. At its peak, the ‘Kimchi Premium’ in the local cryptocurrency exchange market reached 50 percent, due to unusual spike in demand and speculation. As of current, the price of cryptocurrencies is nearly identical to other markets, demonstrating stability in the South Korean cryptocurrency market,” said Kim Yong-bum, the vice president of FSC.

Regional governments have started to allocate an increasing amount of resources to create active cryptocurrency communities as the majority of the individuals and businesses in South Korea have moved towards acknowledging cryptocurrencies as an emerging asset class and blockchain technology as an important element in the fourth industrial revolution, along with artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, and big data.`

Sejong, a rapidly growing city in South Korea and an ambitious project by the government to create a highly advanced and sophisticated area for startups, is currently working on deploying a local cryptocurrency that will be used by the residents to process payments and be incentivized for providing personal information to the government.

Jeju Island’s Ambitious Vision

The Unesco-recognized island of Jeju, home to some of the country’s biggest technology conglomerates like NXC, the $12 billion gaming giant which recently acquired cryptocurrency exchange Korbit at a valuation of $150 million, is unique in that it has the authority to implement its own regulations and policies outside of the scope of the federal government.

Earlier this month, the government of Jeju disclosed its plans to evolve into the next Malta, attracting cryptocurrency businesses and multi-billion dollar blockchain projects with friendly regulations. It also stated that the country’s initial coin offering (ICO) ban may be revoked within Jeju Island and local companies may be permitted to conduct token sales if they relocate to Jeju Island.

Featured Image From Shutterstock

The post Korea’s Largest Cities Want to Become Crypto Capitals, Market Optimistic appeared first on NewsBTC.

Brief excursion to $6,600 sees Bitcoin beat resistance at $6,000

FOMO Moments

Crypto land remains flat, however Ethereum Classic, VeChain and Lisk are pumping.

Yesterday’s bounce from the bottom could not be sustained and any positive market movements seem to be quashed before they can gain any momentum. Total market capitalization has remained the same for the past 24 hours as the bears keep things on the floor.

Bitcoin has held the $6,400 level with no movement on the day, it reached the $6,600 resistance level but failed to break it falling back again. Ethereum has inched up a little from its 2018 low to a touch above $290. The 2.8% gain is pushing ETH back towards its resistance point of $300 where it spent almost three months at this time last year.

Altcoins are a mixed bunch with some falling back again and a couple making solid gains. The top ten is pretty flat on the day, a few are making a couple of percent but Stellar is dropping the most, 3% to $0.216. Ethereum Classic is making a predictably big move at the moment after Coinbase Consumer confirms its listing. ETC is currently up 18% to $14.09 as it looks to reclaim all losses over the past week. Once Coinbase trading begins prices are likely to climb higher as more liquidity enters the market.

VeChain is having a big pump at the moment, surging 30% to $0.010. Aside from KuCoin reopening VET withdrawal services nothing obvious seems to be driving it so it may just be another pump and dump.

KuCoin opens withdrawal services of VET at 14:00 (UTC+8) on August 17, 2018. https://t.co/GSpM1ownDz

— VeChain Foundation (@vechainofficial) August 16, 2018

Lisk on the other hand has a real reason to by pumping as the project revealed the planned block height for the mainnet release of Lisk Core 1.0.

#Lisk Core 1.0 is going to Mainnet! The migration will take place when we reach block height 6,901,027 at the end of round 68327.

We expect this block height to arrive on Wednesday, August 29, no sooner than 11:00 AM CEST. For info, read below.  https://t.co/WqFiDeF0QJ

— Lisk (@LiskHQ) August 15, 2018

Lisk is up 16% at the moment to trade at $3.43 however it is still massively down over 75% from its May high of $14. Ontology is also having a better day with a 16% jump to $1.47 as traders snap up altcoins at rock bottom prices. On the flip side Aurora, TenX, Holo, and Pundi X are still getting battered losing 7-8% on the day.

Total crypto market capitalization has inched up about a percent to just over $207 billion. Trade volume has not moved and is still $13.5 billion. The overall trend is still down and there are no strong signs yet of a recovery on the horizon.

FOMO Moments is a section that takes a daily look at the top 25 altcoins during the current trading session and analyses the best performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.

The post Altcoin Update: VeChain Pumping, Lisk Lifted on Core Mainnet Launch appeared first on NewsBTC.

Talks are underway with producers with plans to release a movie next year called “Crypto” starring actor Kurt Russell.

The film, already in post production, is reportedly a crime-based thriller following in the footsteps of films such as Wall Street, Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short which focussed on the economic crisis of 2008.

Such films about the financial sector are becoming increasingly popular and tend to get good box office ratings as a result. Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street quickly became the prolific filmmaker’s top-grossing film at the worldwide box office shortly after its release.

Cryptocurrency is not an area which has been ignored as a newcomer to the financial movie genre as plans are afoot for two movies covering the topic apart from “Crypto”. Actor Johnny Depp, of Edward Scissorhands and Pirates of the Caribbean fame, has been linked with a new film said to be a biopic of the late cryptocurrency billionaire Matthew Mellon. Although it hasn’t been confirmed, sources reportedly told the Mail Online that Depp is understood to be interested in the role and that “there is a screenplay being shopped”.

There is a rumor circulating that the soon-to-be-released biography about crypto twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss called “Bitcoin Billionaires” is already being considered for a movie deal even before its release, according to the New York Post.

The latest revelation is clearly more than a rumor, having reached post-production and a predicted release date. “Crypto” is reported to also star Beau Knapp from The Nice Guys and Alexis Bledel from The Handmaid’s Tale.

The producers of the film, Jordan Beckerman of Yale Productions and Jordan Tale Levine, are not reputed to be crypto investors but apparently are fans, so wish to do the film justice treating the subject accurately and fairly. Levine explained:

“Both of us have dabbled (with crypto). I don’t know if either of us would consider ourselves experts. It was really our writers who fleshed out the topic and dove into the research. They were the ones who really became experts to make sure the film was authentic.”

However, it must be mentioned for die-hard fans that cryptocurrency is by no means the main topic of the film. Co-producer Beckerman commented, “It’s more broad than that… It doesn’t particularly focus on any particular coin.” He said that the movie does involve corruption, crime and “a smattering of crypto”.

Kurt Russell is sure to give the film some leverage at the box office on its release next year.

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bitcoinnewscom

Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com at https://t.me/bconews

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

The post Kurt Russell Thriller “Crypto” to be Released 2019 appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Bitcoin Press Release: ​Allen Rothwell, a former national account manager for HP Inc., is the new chief executive officer for XTRABYTES, a blockchain company devoted to facilitating decentralized applications development.  

August 8th, 2018. Toronto, Canada: The company will benefit from his extensive experience in the technology and services sector, particularly as the company transitions into a global enterprise. “This technology will change how people view the blockchain industry, setting the company apart from anything we’ve seen to date.” Rothwell said, adding that what excites him most is that “we are starting on the ground floor and building a very powerful product, one that will be life-changing for many people.”

Ashley Norman, recently HP’s commercial graphics divisional manager, is slated to be the new chief operating officer. ​During his time with HP, Norman worked with regional sales managers to achieve 10 years of consecutive growth, becoming an expert in market trend identification and global product launches.

Both leaders said that the XTRABYTES platform will dramatically advance the commercial
adoption of decentralized applications. They intend to enter an array of markets by fully utilizing the company’s versatile development technologies.

Strategic Developments

It’s that kind of potential – and an industry valuation that has more than doubled within the past year alone – that has attracted the two executives to join other leaders including Matt Huang from Sequoia, Amber Baldet from J.P. Morgan Chase, and Chris Matta from Goldman Sachs in accepting positions within the blockchain industry.

“When Allen met with me and discussed XTRABYTES, I knew from my experience that this product had the potential to make a lasting impact on the market and that I wanted to be a part of that success,” Norman said.

About XTRABYTES Ltd.

XTRABYTES is currently drafting several patents for its blockchain technology. This includes its Proof of Signature (PoSign) consensus algorithm, a radical departure from how current cryptographic methods function. The decentralized network will provide users with an
unparalleled level of security, speed, and increased energy efficiency. It will also be
completely scalable, utilizing 3,584 separate ‘STATIC’ nodes. You can find out more about the company by visiting https://xtrabytes.global.

Visit the website: https://xtrabytes.global/
Discord: https://discord.xtrabytes.global
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/XtraBYtes/
Connect on Twitter: https://twitter.com/xtrabytes
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/XTRABYTESOfficialCrypto

Media Contact
Name: ​John Potter
Email: ​[email protected]

XTRABYTES is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. Cryptocurrencies and tokens are extremely volatile. There is no guarantee of a stable value, or of any value at all. Token sales are only suitable for individuals with a high risk tolerance. Only participate in a token event with what you can afford to lose.

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bitcoinnewscom

Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com at https://t.me/bconews

Image Courtesy:

The post PR: xFormer HP Inc Executives to Lead Blockchain Company XTRABYTES in Transition to Global Player appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.