Day: August 28, 2018

Huobi, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world with trading volumes in excess of USD 500 million per day, has reportedly acquired Pantronics Holdings Ltd via purchasing 73.73% of its stock for USD 77 million.

Pantronics is a manufacturer of electronics equipment and is listed publicly on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Huobi might have acquired it to conduct a reverse takeover, which would allow the exchange to become a publicly-listed company without going through the lengthy initial public offering (IPO) approval process.

The CEO of Huobi, Li Lin, was asked if his company intends to do a backdoor listing with this acquisition. While dismissing the rumor, he stopped short of denial, leaving the possibility open. He said if Huobi did a reverse takeover it would be difficult to manage since it wasn’t compliant in every country.

To be fair, there is always the possibility Huobi is just making an investment. It would have to gut Pantronics and turn it into a shell company to do a reverse takeover, which would upset the company and would be very difficult for regulators to approve.

There is no crypto exchange in the world that is publicly listed and it seems unlikely that regulators would allow the first publicly-listed crypto exchange to happen through a reverse takeover. Trading of Pantronics on the Hong Kong stock exchange has been halted as of 22 August 2018 until regulators give approval for Huobi to buy that much stock. Regulators will also have the choice in the future to delist Pantronics if Huobi turns it into a shell company for a reverse takeover, if it gets that far.

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter: @bitcoinnewscom

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

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

The post Huobi Acquires Pantronics in Potential Reverse Takeover appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Venezuelan banks have been ordered to use the petro, the Maduro government-launched cryptocurrency, as a unit of account.

A large proposed digital currency index fund is hoping to attract institutional investors keen to get exposure to the rapidly evolving digital asset space. However, the firm behind the index, Morgan Creek, plans to exclude virtual currencies that they deem to be too centralised.

Morgan Creek Fund Requires Listing to Exhibit a Level of Decentralisation

Morgan Creek announced the new fund earlier today. It will be provided by both the investment firm and their partners from Bitwise Asset Management – a California-based crypto investment startup.

The firm led by Mark Yusko stated that the index fund will be called Morgan Creek Bitwise Digital Asset Index.

The new fund will allow institutions exposure to the largest 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. However, those behind the idea are keen to avoid potential regulatory issues that could arise from pre-mined digital assets such as XRP. According to Business Insider, the founders of the Ripple network hold around 55% of all XRP tokens.

To clarify, XRP is the name given to the native currency on the Ripple network. It is used to perform some of its intended functions. Meanwhile, Ripple is the name of the payment network itself.

The new Morgan Creek fund will require that the companies behind crypto projects hold no more than 30% of the total supply of their coins. The head of the firm’s crypto unit, Anthony Pompliano explained:

“A large centralised repository, increases threat vectors, governance issues, regulatory issues… By removing those type of assets from the index, you drastically reduce the risk that investors are exposed to.”

The main concern from the point of view of Morgan Creek Digital (the firm’s cryptocurrency wing) is that federal regulators may deem tokens whose founders hold large repositories of said digital currency a security. However, Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse has stated previously that he believes XRP should not be classified as such by the SEC.

Earlier this year the U.S. securities regulator stated that neither Bitcoin or Ether were to be classified as a security. The regulator is yet to classify any of the other 1,600 or so coins and tokens in existence today.

It is believed that the new index fund will charge 2% in managements fees for their services. Pompiliano also states that Morgan Creek is looking to attract institutions to invest in the Morgan Creek Bitwise Digital Asset Index. Those named include endowments, pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and foundations.

Morgan Creek currently manages funds in excess of $1.5 billion for its clients. Earlier this year, they acquired a North Carolina-based firm interested in investments focusing on cryptocurrencies called Full Tilt.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The post New Crypto Index Fund Will Exclude “Centralised” XRP appeared first on NewsBTC.

Blockchain storage startup Filecoin announced it would launch its mainnet sometime near the middle of next year.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin has finally broken above the $7,000 level following two upward moves on Tuesday. It first attempted to challenge resistance by climbing the $6,750 zone to the $6,900-6,950 area, and then a decisive breakout was capped near $7,100. The rest of the cryptocurrency market followed the positive tone with little exceptions.

Bitcoin Price Follows Bullish Moves in Stock Market

Earlier on Tuesday, technical analyst Sarah Jenn suggested that an upward move signaled “bulls are ready to charge and push price much higher from here”, potentially resulting in a $1,000 rally for Bitcoin.

“Note that the chart pattern spans $5,800 to around $6,800 so the resulting rally could be roughly the same height as well, taking bitcoin price to $7,800 next.”

Analyst Aayush Jindal argued,”there is a crucial bullish trend line in place with support at $6,780 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair”.

As market participants return from their summer holidays, higher-yielding and riskier markets such as stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies, are likely to find stronger demand.

The move past the $7,000 in the price of Bitcoin comes in a context of general market enthusiasm, portrayed by a new record high in the S&P 500, one of the world’s most popular index funds, which is based on the market capitalizations of 500 large companies.

Traders may be encouraged by last year’s market moves, with the S&P 500 jumping 8.3 percent into the third week of August and then another 15 percent over the next five months. It also seems that the U.S. government’s decision to withdraw from NAFTA in order to close a bilateral accord, the U.S.-Mexico trade deal, eases the uncertainty many traders within the industry have lived with while tension mounted between the two countries.

A recent Commitments of Traders (CoT) report by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has revealed declining bearish bets on Bitcoin futures contracts for the week ending August 21. The net position on BTC futures is still negative, at -1,266, with shorts falling by 210 contracts to 3,426 and long positions up by 56 contracts to 2,160. The week ending on June 5 showed a net position of -1,926 in the Bitcoin futures market, which indicates a turnaround in market sentiment.

The market move, which allowed the price of Bitcoin to hover the $7,050 area, has boosted market capitalization by $5 billion to over $121 billion, a gain of +4%. The total market capitalization benefited from the current bullish sentiment as it amassed $8 billion to $228 billion in less than 24 hours, $5 billion of which (nearly two thirds) belong to Bitcoin.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The post Bitcoin Breaks $7,000 as Risk Appetite Takes Over Markets appeared first on NewsBTC.

The essentials to creating a blockchain product include decentralization and a truly secure protocol, both of which Deviant Coin (DEV), a privacy-centric platform, aims to achieve during the development of its platform.

Deviant Coin recently announced the release of its long-awaited white paper and hybrid decentralized exchange. The white paper is a 27-page long document detailing the objectives, milestones and expectations of its platform.

They have also said that their revolutionary hardware wallet will be released shortly. Each of these developmental milestones constitutes a game-changing development for their platform.

About Deviant Coin

According to the roadmap, the Deviant Coin project started in January 2018 and since then has burrowed its way through several developmental milestones within a short time frame.

Deviant Coin, which is based in Singapore, is mainly concerned with the development of a PoS/masternode cryptocurrency that provides a 90% pure PoS Block reward. It takes the decentralization and privacy issues of crypto trading seriously. The project developers are working on designing a hybrid exchange platform to leverage the perks of both centralized and decentralized exchanges. This will compensate for the shortcomings experienced by a single type of exchange alone.

The allure of Deviant Coin comes from its three-fold package in their service development:

•    A decentralized utility token
•    A decentralized hybrid crypto exchange
•    A hardware wallet

The Exchange Dilemma

Cryptocurrency exchanges play a crucial role in the development lifecycle of crypto assets, primarily by providing a trade platform between cryptocurrencies. However, as important as they are, there are numerous technical limitations in centralized and decentralized exchange infrastructures which can cause a lot of problems for crypto traders and investors.

Hybrid exchanges, on the other hand, confer traders the unique advantages of flexibility in handling transactions on the blockchain. And while non-settlement activities are handled off-chain, the transaction records are duly secured. This creates a high-performance exchange platform.

DEVX Hybrid Exchange

Deviant Coin’s decentralized exchange DEVX is built to be a hybrid exchange based on Bitshares (BTS) blockchain. It will feature flash transactions and offer Deviant Coin holders the opportunity to receive dividends from the exchange.

By taking advantage of the speed and responsiveness of centralized exchanges, alongside the transparency, security, and accountability of decentralized exchanges, Deviant Coin aims to optimize overall trading performance and experience through DEVX and buffer systems.

Desktop and Hardware Wallet

Deviant Coin has all sorts of desktop wallets and plans are underway to produce their own hardware wallet. This is unique to the decentralized world, as it is the first ever hardware device with top-notch security in the form of a three-factor-authentication, which is a step beyond regular 2FA.

Development of the hardware wallet is underway, and the team is working unrelentingly to make it as secure and durable as possible. They have also hinted that the wallet will be open source and allow for anyone to have access to their source code. Current progress on the development and eventual release of the wallet can also be found at the Deviant Coin website.

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter: @bitcoinnewscom

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

Image Courtesy:

The post Deviant Coin Blockchain Platform Releases Whitepaper and Hybrid DEX appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

These are rather interesting times for the cryptocurrency markets. As Bitcoin sets the pace for all other currencies, it will be intriguing to see what happens next. The IOTA price continues to soar high after a full day of steep gains. It is well underway to hit $0.75 once again, barring any major mishaps with Bitcoin.

IOTA Price Remains Incredibly Bullish

It is incredibly fun to see all cryptocurrency markets go through an extended positive spell. The year 2018 has been anything but positive so far, but it seems these past few days offer a welcome sight. The IOTA price is a good example, as it continues to note strong gains day after day. Sustaining this price trend, however, is a different matter altogether.

Over the past 24 hours, the IOTA price has noted very strong gains n both USD and BTC value. With a 21.44% increase in the USD department, the IOTA price appears well underway to surpass $0.75 fairly soon. That can only happen if the holders do not take massive profits and the Bitcoin price remains at or near its current level.

Moreover, IOTA continues to gain a lot of value compared to Bitcoin. This is despite the world’s leading cryptocurrency rising in value in the past few hours, albeit it is not uncommon for altcoins to note strong gains when the overall momentum changes. So far, a 16.21% gain has been noted in the MIOTA/BTC ratio, effectively ensuring IOTA is worth over 10,000 Satoshi again.

During bullish times like these, the overall cryptocurrency trading volume tends to increase. Although the current figures still remain below $15bn, it is a vast improvement compared to this past weekend. For IOTA, its volume sits comfortably at $117.69m, which is respectable albeit not out of the ordinary either.

Similar to a few days ago, Bitfinex and Binance maintain control over the IOTA trading markets. Bitfinex leads the pack with a USD pair, generating twice the volume of Binance’s USDT and BTC pairs. OKEx has its own USDT pair in the top four, followed by Bitfinex’s BTC market. It is a good sign to see a fiat currency pair at the top and with impressive volume.

As is always the case when cryptocurrency prices rise, there is a good chance the momentum will sour fairly soon. There has been no real cryptocurrency uptrend throughout 2018 to speak of, as all gains are usually pushed down in quick succession. Whether or not history can repeat itself yet again, remains to be seen. For the IOTA price, the push will not relent soon, but it is doubtful more spectacular gains can be noted in the coming hours.

A government-backed hackathon has been announced in South Korea as part of the 2018 Blockchain Promotion Week.

As reported by local news outlet Money Today, the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and the Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency (KIPA) will be hosting a 2018 Blockchain Grand Challenge. Sponsoring the event is the South Korean Ministry of Science, Technology and Information.

Race to innovate

The Blockchain Promotion Week event will be taking place from 26 to 30 November to boost public awareness of the technology and demonstrate what it can add to society and industries.

The hackathon challenge, announced on 17 August by KISA, is a chance for developers to create solutions for social issues, distributed apps (Dapps), as well as innovations for public and private industries with blockchain, “providing national benefits”.

Participants have until 28 September to sign up for the hackathon; the winners will receive “17 awards” from sponsors including the President of KIPA as well as a prize pot of KRW 100 million (USD 90,450).

Additionally, winners will be granted some significant opportunities, as written by Money Today, such as support for internship opportunities, participation in overseas hackathons and employment support.

Director of KIPA, Kim Seok-hwan said, “The use of blockchain technology will lead to an innovative change in people’s lives. By participating in this competition, everyone will have the opportunity to participate and contribute.”

Competition time

Competition that drives blockchain innovation at grassroots levels is proving to be rather popular, especially in the format of hackathons, with large prizes from entities such as the European Union (EU) up for grabs.

South Korea has a rather bullish approach to injecting blockchain into public discourse; as recently reported, a new reality game show created by Asia Economy TV called ‘Blockbattle – Who’s the Next Satoshi?’ will be reaching television screen in mid-October.

Contestants will battle it out in a similar manner to that of the hackathon; teams will “…go through a series of presentations, one-on-one battles, and other team competitions”.

Other news

South Korea is undoubtedly one of the foremost prominent nations in blockchain. Heightened levels of discussion surrounding many facets of blockchain technology have been taking place at the National Assembly, with topics including initial coin offerings (ICOs) and the Jeju Island Blockchain Hub proposal on the table.

Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter: @bitcoinnewscom

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

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

The post South Korea Hosts Blockchain Awareness Hackathon appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

The recent headlines about Bill Cosby have done nothing to warm public sentiment to the confirmed sex offender and disgraced comedian. According to rumors on tabloid website Radar Online, Cosby bought 750 BTC (~$5 million) in a bid to shield his diminishing fortune from his wife Camille.

The article goes on to say that Cosby owes millions to the government along with some $25 million in unpaid legal fees. Sensational stuff indeed. Not only does this story serve to drag Cosby’s reputation to a new low, but it also muddies the waters about Bitcoin. Once again, the world’s number-one cryptocurrency is labeled as a vehicle for illicit deeds and tax evasion, with sex offenders as paying customers.

More Misunderstanding About How Bitcoin Works

Yet if the “expert” cited in the Radar Online report proved anything, it’s that he knows very little about how Bitcoin actually works. In fact, Frank Ahearn, author of How to Disappear, is quoted in Radar Online as saying some very silly things indeed. Out of the few short sentences provided, almost all are wrong. This not only gives him a near-perfect error rate but mangles public understanding of Bitcoin even more.

He supposedly said: “To me, it raises a huge red flag. Cryptocurrency has decreased in value, and you’d have to be crazy to buy Bitcoin now. But it’s a great tool if you’re planning an escape… He could basically have a middleman in another country receive the money. He’d just need to go there to collect it.”

Go Where Exactly?

The credibility of this expert to speak on the merits of Bitcoin must have the cryptocurrency community cringing. First of all, the whole point of Bitcoin is that it doesn’t require a middleman. And as for going to collect it? Well, that’s just stupid.

Images of Cosby in a beige suit and dark glasses stepping out of a private plane on a runway in Havana come to mind. But then, isn’t that yet another point of Bitcoin? There’s actually nothing to physically collect and nowhere to collect it. You just need your private key. Unless that’s what he’s got stored in his offshore vault, of course.

Further Flaws in the Story

Saying that you’d have to be crazy to buy Bitcoin is perhaps an opinion shared by many. However, it’s also the absolute opposite of how institutional investors work. Warren Buffett famously said to buy when there’s blood in the streets. And, in fact, if ever there were a time to buy Bitcoin, it’s now. If you have a spare $5 million lying around, that is.

Oh, unless you’re a registered sex offender in a high-profile court case and you owe money to the government. Under those circumstances, you should probably think again.

While many people thought that Bitcoin was a tool to escape, law enforcement officers have already figured out how to track Bitcoin transactions. And buying millions of dollars worth of BTC with USD tends to create a solid, traceable trail.

Even if Cosby had covered his footsteps so well and avoided electronic payment records by buying with wads of cash stuffed under his mattress, he would have to have a pretty tight peer-to-peer Bitcoin trader on the inside. But such individuals can usually only accept small amounts or risk blowing their cover for not having the appropriate license.

And when the time comes to convert his crypto to fiat, good luck getting around KYC and AML practices.

The Takeaway

We all love a good story. But let’s try to keep at least one eye out for the facts and remember what Bitcoin is about in the first place: the transfer of (potentially extremely high) value across geographies.

Yes, divorce lawyers are busy studying up on Bitcoin since it appears that right now it can’t be taken in divorce, bankruptcy, or by the government. But what use is that to someone like Cosby if he can’t retrieve the funds in the end?

So did he really buy $5 million in BTC to keep the money away from his wife? Possibly. But it seems unlikely. And if he did, he’d better hope that his advisers carried out a little more research into the workings of Bitcoin than Ahearn did.

At press time, the father of cryptocurrency has broken $7,000, which is about $300 higher than where it stood yesterday afternoon. This means that bitcoin jumped roughly 20 percent over the past two weeks, with gains of approximately $1,200 (the August low was $5,865).

One source alleges that bitcoin short positions have grown exponentially over the past few weeks, while the bears are simply leaving the space. According to analyst Brian Kelly, the demand for bitcoin futures is also growing, which has led to higher maturity in the bitcoin market. In addition, he also believes a bitcoin ETF will be approved no later than February 2019.

Bitcoin is not alone in its present ascension. The cryptocurrency market has added $12 billion to itself over the past 24 hours, expanding to $230 billion for the first time since early August. This means that digital currencies have garnered $41 billion back from their recent market lows.

Altcoins and competing tokens were partially responsible for this boost (bitcoin only makes up about 53 percent of the total market cap). Together, these entities boast a combined value of roughly $107.5 billion. Dash is performing particularly strong and is trading for about $183 at the time of writing. This suggests a gain of roughly 24 percent. IOTA is also doing quite well, having risen by over 16 percent in the last day to now trade at approximately 68 cents, while Tron’s TRX has added 13 percent to its value and is now trading for just shy of three cents.

In addition, larger coins like Ethereum added nearly five percent to its value and is now trading for just under $290. Bitcoin cash has added nearly five percent to its total value, and is trading for around $554, and Ripple’s XRP now stands at 34 cents – a jump of roughly six percent over the last day. Trade volumes for cryptocurrencies have also significantly increased, growing by 21 percent.

Some continue to remain skeptical when it comes to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, however. Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort, for example, has long remained adamant that bitcoin will come crashing down, and can never work as real money. Of bitcoin’s current nature, he comments:

“I was a scammer. I had it down to science, and it’s exactly what’s happening with bitcoin. The whole thing is so stupid. These kids have gotten themselves so brainwashed.”

Furthermore, men like billionaire investor Warren Buffett say that bitcoin is “rat poison squared,” while Bill Harris – former CEO of PayPal – calls bitcoin “the greatest scam in history.”

Bitcoin Charts by TradingView

Four years after the collapse, the hacked exchange Mt. Gox has more money than it owes to its victims

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Many blockchain use cases exist today, although exploring them all will be a major challenge. In the case of disrupting social media, various projects claim the blockchain will help disrupt these centralized ecosystems once and for all. The following companies, listed alphabetically, are using distributed ledgers for that very purpose.

6. Indorse

Very few people are seemingly aware of the Indorse project, even though it seeks to offer similar functionality to LinkedIn using blockchain technology. It is based on Ethereum technology and validates users’ skills in an objective manner. Combined with other innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence and chatbots, the project seems to hold a lot of potential. It will take some time to properly determine whether or not Indorse can gain real-world traction.

5. Kin / Kik

Although most people assume Kin is just a part of the Kik social messaging service, there is a lot more to this project than meets the eye. Kik is an existing social network which recently decided to tap blockchain technology to add digital services, applications, and other valuable features to the network. While it may not necessarily become a full-fledged social media network overnight, it is the project with the most real mainstream traction.

4. OnG.social

When looking at social media networks, OnG.social is somewhat of an odd duck. It is a tool designed to enhance one’s social media experience rather than a platform meant to rival either Facebook or Twitter. That doesn’t make it any less appealing, especially because it runs on top of two different blockchains – Ethereum and Waves. Combining all social networks into one convenient dashboard could be of great value to the right user base.

3. Sapien

While it may not necessarily have the most marketable name of them all, Sapien positions itself as a social hub for news. Many people rely on social media platforms to get the latest news updates in a browser or mobile app. Sapien aims to offer “democratized social news” using blockchain technology. Unlike most other social networks, this venture doesn’t focus on financial gain, which is something other platforms may want to look into as well.

2. Sola

A platform which has caused a bit of a stir over the past few months goes by the name of Sola. This new platform is both a social network and a news aggregation service which heavily relies on blockchain technology and artificial intelligence. The core mission of this platform is to spread information in a global manner. Advertising revenue generated by the platform will be shared with its users, which will undoubtedly attract a lot of attention.

1. Steemit

By far the most popular blockchain-powered social platform among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is Steemit. It has been around for some time now, and it makes it easy for content creators to make money by contributing valuable and engaging content to the platform. Although this concept may not necessarily make people rich overnight, it is not uncommon for contributors to earn $100 per valuable post on the platform.