Day: September 11, 2018

In August 2018, gamers met in Cologne, Germany, for one of the largest gaming events in the industry – Gamescom. The fair hosted a perfect mix of renowned game studios, publishers, gamers and enthusiasts from around the world, all interacting freely with each other. Some of the notable entities participating in the event included the likes of Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony.

The Gamescom event is the ideal place for gaming companies to make announcements about new releases, check out the latest trends in gaming, and get more information about what is hot and what’s not. NAGA VIRTUAL graced this event and was part of the team that showcased their products to the gamers and game developers.

During the event, it was quite evident that the industry trend is slowly shifting. Traditionally, game publishers made a majority of their revenue upfront through high sales prices. Nowadays, they are looking to strengthen their revenue models by monetizing in-game time by incentivizing gamers to engage in microtransactions.

NAGA VIRTUAL has identified this trend and is leveraging it. The company has set up an ingenious platform that acts as a virtual store for publishers to sell virtual products. Think of it as your local store where you can easily get virtual goods, with the gamers on NAGA VIRTUAL also having the chance to trade in-game items with each other.

The reception from the gaming community was enormously positive. Most of the gamers who attended the show loved the idea of having an independent platform that sells virtual gaming products. Over 80 percent of the participants expressed a desire to learn more and visited the platform to check out various wares that were on offer.

Globally, game publishers have started to embrace new models of monetization. Fortnite, in particular, has brought this to fore by showing that gaming companies can make significant revenues from the sale of cosmetic items through microtransactions. At the same time, players are now looking at cosmetic items that add value to the ownership of these items and allow interoperability across multiple platforms for these items.

Having cosmetic items that are unique to a particular player is slowly emerging as an essential feature for most gamers. This is especially the case in Asia. Trends show that players from Asia are more interested in buying cosmetic items as they play their favorite games.

Game publishers can take advantage of this interest in cosmetic ownership and increase revenue within their companies, and NAGA VIRTUAL is on its way to helping companies leverage this trend.

Game publishers and even users can also enjoy additional exposure by listing products on NAGA VIRTUAL. Players can easily have a look at such listed wares, which in turn will provide additional exposure to the gaming products that are available on the market.

NAGA VIRTUAL states,

“We offer a comprehensive solution to publishers that allows them to simply list their virtual products without any additional technical hitches.

Due to the increased interest in virtual products across the gaming industry, our platform gives publishers the advantage of being early adopters of this changing trend.

As a publisher, you get full control of your store and can easily monitor the sales and other KPIs for your products. We are also supporting multiple platforms in our virtual store and the time it takes for product integration is also short.”

NAGA VIRTUAL is fully compliant with all statutory obligations in Europe, so gamers and developers can be sure that they will be dealing with a trustworthy and a compliant company.

Speaking about the company’s participation in various events, NAGA VIRTUAL’s representative stated:

“We are seeing an increase in the interest on our platform. Due to this fact, we will be part of the delegation that will take part in Games Connection Europe that will be held in Paris from October 24th till 26th. We will also be in Busan for the G- start event from November 15th till 18th. These events will provide us with a great chance to meet more publishers and interact with players and enthusiasts. We have added better features on our virtual store and have already incorporated most of the feedback we got from the Gamescom Show held in Cologne Germany.”

The post NAGA VIRTUAL: New Opportunities in the Virtual Goods Market appeared first on NewsBTC.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

A side effect of plummeting cryptocurrency prices is that crypto exchanges such as Binance, Bitfinex, OKEx, and many others are seeing trading volumes drop considerably, and with it, the revenue these companies derive from the trading fees associated with each transaction an investor makes. In an effort to continue to drive strong revenue numbers and maintain market share gained during the 2017 cryptocurrency market bull run, many exchanges have turned to unorthodox business practices in order to gain a competitive edge, lure in more customers, and profit off new coins being listed on their exchange.

Crypto Bear Market Has Forced Exchanges to Get Creative

According to data from cryptocurrency price data aggregate site CoinMarketCap, trading volumes in the cryptocurrency market have declined 80% from its January 2018 high led by Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in late December.

Since then, new crypto exchanges, new investment products, and even new coins have surfaced that could further divert revenue from the current major players scrambling to maintain their market share.

“The market downturn has certainly contributed to an increase in unorthodox strategies by token issuers and exchanges,” Lucas Nuzzi, director of technology research at Digital Asset Research, told Bloomberg.

Crypto Exchanges Strong-Arm Coin Issuers With Random Listing Fees

Many crypto exchanges charge coin issuers to list their coins for trading among investors in an attempt to bolster their bottom line at the expense of cryptocurrency projects themselves. Lex Sokolin of Autonomous Research says that these fees have amounted to as much as $1 billion in exchange revenue.

In one such example, Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin allegedly charges as much as 50 BTC to have a new coin or token listed, according to Christopher Franko, co-founder of North Carolina-based blockchain startup Expanse.

“We can pay for it, but it doesn’t justify the means,” Franko told Bloomberg in a phone interview.

KuCoin denied the claim, suggesting that prices vary by startup and added that the fee itself isn’t the motivation to list projects. The “project itself is,” said KuCoin spokesperson Miles Wu.

Franko also recently accused Binance of charging a staggering 400 BTC, or approximately $2.5 million in current the current price per Bitcoin – a claim that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao vehemently disputed.

Another major exchange, OKEx, doesn’t charge coin issuers, but instead encourages them to bring in 50,000 new registered users to the exchange, with at least 20,000 of them actively trading with an account fund by a minimum of one ETH. Meeting those guidelines doesn’t guarantee a coin will be listed, and will only give them a “better shot,” according to the report.

Both exchange’s listing approach is in stark contrast to the easy to understand standards set by traditional financial firm NASDAQ, which charges $50,000 to list a 15 million share company, and $225,000 to list a company with over 100 million shares.

Native Token Issuance To Encourage User Voting and Loyalty

Crypto exchanges such as KuCoin, Binance, and Bitfinex’s DEX, Ethfinex, all offer investors native cryptocurrency tokens of their own, both as an investment vehicle, but also to give discounts on trading fees or to be used to vote for coin listings. Such a strategy can encourage customer loyalty as they become bound to the exchange’s native token and reap the benefits of holding the token.

In these cases, the addition of new listings is largely in the hands of the cryptocurrency community. In addition, the native tokens help these exchanges maintain market share by keeping customers and their transactions tied to their own ecosystems.

Image from Shutterstock

The post Crypto Exchanges Resort to Unorthodox Methods Amid Bear Market appeared first on NewsBTC.

Over the last few weeks, there’s been a heated discussion within the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community concerning the scheduled November 15 hard fork. There’s a strong disagreement between the BCH development teams, Bitcoin ABC, Nchain, and Bitcoin Unlimited in regard to the hard fork’s upcoming consensus changes. Fast forward to this week as Nchain has published the Bitcoin SV beta release, Coingeek’s Calvin Ayre speaks out against chain splitting rumors, and there have also been a few insightful studies done on Bitcoin ABC’s proposed canonical transaction ordering (CTOR) upgrade.

Also read: Korean Banks to Limit Services for Crypto Traders Without Real-Name Verification

Nchain Launches Bitcoin SV Beta Version

Last week’s BCH Stress Test Day took everyone’s minds off of the ongoing upgrade debate taking place within the Bitcoin Cash community. It all started during the last week of July when Bitcoin ABC revealed the team’s roadmap and published the 0.18 ABC codebase in the second week of August. Nchain’s chief scientist Craig Wright was one of the first to oppose the upgrades proposed by the ABC team. Wright explained he was vehemently against adding the opcode called OP_CHECKDATASIG (CDS), and the implementation of canonical transaction ordering (CTOR). Wright detailed his team Nchain would create their own BCH full node client that would entail completely different upgrades within the codebase. Nchain disclosed the new client would be called Bitcoin SV (Satoshi’s Vision) and the full node client will restore the Satoshi opcodes OP_MUL, OP_LSHIFT, OP_RSHIFT, OP_INVERT, remove the 201 opcode script limit, and increase the base block size to 128MB.

About a week and a half ago BCH miners, developers, and industry leaders met in Bangkok to try and hash out the differences, but the meeting didn’t pay off with any compromise between the disagreeing camps. At the time Nchain also launched the Bitcoin SV alpha release and revealed a new mining pool dedicated to the SV codebase. Now, this week Nchain has released the Bitcoin SV beta version on Github. Observers have noted that there was some newly added code related to the 128M increase, some revised release documentation, and some other minor changes.                 

Coingeek & Calvin Ayre: We Will Fight Any Attempts by Anyone That Cause a Chain Split

On Monday, September 10 Calvin Ayre, owner of the blockchain firm and mining pool Coingeek, explained in a recent post that his company will not allow a hash war to split the BCH chain. Ayre emphasizes that his firm has never had the intention of splitting the true version of Bitcoin (BCH).   

“We will fight any attempts by anyone else to cause a chain split,” Ayre details. “Coingeek and friends believe in the Satoshi Vision for the evolution of Bitcoin and that means all disputes should be settled by Nakamoto consensus and miner hash elections.”

Nakamoto consensus dictates that at all times the longest chain (with the most Proof-of-Work) shall prevail and this will be respected at all times by Coingeek media and mining.

Ayre believes other “contentious, untested and unnecessary protocol changes” have recently been introduced to the BCH community, placing a lot of blame on the Chinese mining firm Bitmain Technologies. The Coingeek owner says Bitmain seeks “to constantly experiment with the protocol creating constant instability and driving corporate investment away.” Bitmain has denied all of the Wormhole security issues and CTOR allegations in a recent blog post addressing these accusations. Ayre says he and Coingeek are quite confident that in the end, smart miners will not follow a path towards their own annihilation.

Coingeek is confident that no miners are stupid enough to support a path that leads to their own destruction so we are also confident that this election will be won by the miners and will prove the wisdom of Satoshi Vision.

Some Examinations of CTOR

Lastly, there’s been a lot of insightful studies concerning the CTOR upgrade proposed for November. A post on r/btc gives a comprehensive technical dive into the implementation of canonical transaction ordering. Many developers such as Andrew Stone, Peter Rizun, and Amaury Sechet discussed the topic within the post’s comment section.

According to the study, CTOR could theoretically benefit ideas like Graphene and possibly help with the mempool bottleneck. The author of the post explains, “In the last stress test, we also saw limitations on mempool performance (tx acceptance and relaying). I hope both of these fronts see optimizations before the next stress test, so that a fresh set of bottlenecks can be revealed.” 

Further, the BCH mining pool Rawpool has also published a review of CTOR this week. Rawpool’s study is insightful and details that the mining pool has been testing the new upgrade. Essentially Rawpool details that the current method the Bitcoin protocol uses right now is topical transaction ordering (TTOR). However, the study says that in time it “cannot be denied” that “traditional TTOR sorting will inevitably face problems such as rising memory overhead and increasing computing time.”      

“On the other hand, the fully optimized CTOR ordering should be a completely new data maintenance system, which is bound to have considerable complexity,” Rawpool’s translated research explains.

Rawpool will continue to communicate with the development teams of Bitcoin ABC and Nchain. The deployment of test nodes has been completed and will actively participate in the testing of new upgrades and stress testing throughout the network.

For Now, the BCH November Upgrade Debate Still Remains Unsettled

There’s been a lot of discussions and debates regarding the November 15th BCH upgrade. Bitcoin Unlimited’s lead developer has also critiqued canonical ordering in a post that declares “ABC’s CTOR will not scale.” Stone says that there are two significant problems with CTOR and he explains the sharding proposal (scaling by distributing data to multiple machines) “will not work,” and “lexicographical transaction ordering is unnecessary.” Moreover, Nchain’s Craig Wright has been writing a lot of long-form posts about this subject and generalized Bitcoin topics concerning the technology’s economics nearly every single day.

For now, it seems the debate will continue, and Bitcoin Cash proponents will have to wait to find out what will happen when it gets closer to the upgrade. News.Bitcoin.com will be sure to keep our readers informed every step of the way. 

What do you think about the BCH November upgrade debate? Do you think the disagreeing parties will come to a compromise? Let us know in the comment section below.   

Images via Shutterstock, Twitter, Coingeek, and Pixabay. 

Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH, and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

The post Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Debate Reconvenes After the Stress Test appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Some days it feels like it’s all bad news for crypto. When the Federal Bureau says it’s not even a blip on the radar, the SEC delays another important decision, or the Chinese clamp down on content. The Ethereum scaling issue is putting everyone in a bad mood and regulatory uncertainty is causing confusion.

But, hey. If there’s anything we know about this crazy space, it’s that the situation can turn on a dime. Daily fluctuations and weak hands aside, a lot of hard work is being done. Countries like Switzerland and Malta are leading the way on regulation. Robust platforms are getting built. And those truly dedicated to crypto have hung up a “business as usual” sign despite the market slump.

But what’s in store for the year ahead and as we move into Q4 2018? Check out these top 7 predictions for 2019… Any thoughts of your own?  

7. The Year of the Security Token

If 2017 was all about raising tons of money without fear of regulatory interference, the day of reckoning has come. In the United States, particularly, there’s an overall consensus from the SEC that most tokens are securities. And even if they aren’t, well, people just aren’t taking chances.

Therefore, STOs look set to replace ICOs in 2019, if not completely, then by a sizable amount. All US offerings will be held in compliance with SEC rules under Reg D 506 (b) or (c); Reg A+, or Reg CF. “The advent of security tokens in 2019 will be a big game changer, it will do to the traditional VC industry what email did to the post office,” says CEO and managing partner of Vellum Capital Eric Kovalak.

“Next year will be the year of the security token,” says Kyle Asman, partner, and co-founder of blockchain business advisory firm BX3 Capital. “People are tired of purchasing assets that aren’t tied to something with equity, a share of future profits, or a hard asset such as real estate.”

6. Further Price Decline Before Upward Swing

You were probably hoping to hear about rainbows and butterflies and Bitcoin and Ethereum skyrocketing in price. Well, that isn’t necessarily going to happen. At least, not until a further drop first. According to Kovalak:

“The largest cryptocurrencies will test lower prices before new all-time highs. Would not be unreasonable to see Bitcoin go below $3,500 and I think at these levels the fundamental story becomes hugely attractive.” Are you ready for another drop? Better buckle your belt!

5. Decentralized Exchanges and Greater Security

It’s not only John McAfee who thinks that decentralized exchanges will take over as we move into the future. There’s always been something just not quite right about centralizing a peer-to-peer technology.

But with decentralized exchanges suffering from poor usability and transaction limitations, they’re still struggling to take on the incumbents. 2019 will change all that, not only making transacting cheaper but also keeping our crypto safer since having one single point of failure has been many an exchange’s undoing.

4. Enterprise Adoption

Ledger CEO Eric Larchevêque said, “Enterprises are really at the gates of cryptocurrencies. They are waiting to invest as much as they can.” And 2019 will see larger companies integrating blockchain technology into their business processes. They’ll start to see the benefits of cost savings, fraud reduction, and greater efficiency.

Khaled Khorshid, Co-Founder | Technology for Treon, says “I predict that 2019 will be similar to 1999 when Enterprise Systems like Oracle, Siebel, Clarify, SAP, Broadvision, and others brought a leap in companies’ efficiencies by automating and integrating business processes. Starting in 2019 Blockchain technology will take companies to the next level, from data management to the information age. DApps will be the focus.”

3. Institutional Investors Jump In

As regulation finally makes it to a point where traditional investors are comfortable enough to go all-in, the crypto space will explode. Projects that are similar to existing financial systems will gain in popularity first, including Bitcoin Futures and ETFs. Says Zhang Jian, Founder of Fcoin:

“2019 will be the year that traditional investors within the stock market will take the leap into digital assets. Compliance standards and regulations will begin maturing in their understanding of blockchain, both domestically and internationally. As these specific regulations materialize and roll out to the public, a new wave of market-makers will pour into the space.”

2. Scaling Solutions

“The most interesting ongoing development in cryptocurrency today is the prototyping and release of Layer 2 solutions such as Bitcoin’s Lightning Network and Ethereum’s Plasma,” says Co-Founder and CSO Dhruv Bansal of Unchained Capital. “It’s become clear that cryptocurrencies lucky enough to attract sufficient investors and users inevitably succumb to the twin afflictions of increasing fees and limited throughput.”

Solving most existing blockchains’ scalability issues can and must take front and center in the year ahead if they’re to stay in the race. Says Bansal, “Bitcoin’s Lightning Network was beta released to the public earlier this year and already has some 3000+ nodes with 10k+ payment channels between them, providing a capacity of more than $500k in BTC for near-instant peer-to-peer transactions.

Ethereum’s Plasma project has not yet launched but a new paper by lead developers Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon suggests much progress has been made on the structure and design of Ethereum’s answer to the Lightning Network.” Watch this space.

1. Mass Adoption

That 2019 will be the year of mass adoption of cryptocurrencies is hard for many to believe. Most of the wider US and UK public have never heard of blockchain or–if they have–think it’s something illegal.

Most likely, when we start to see wider usage, Asia will take the lead, although, it’s doubtful that blockchain solutions will have enough maturity for mass appeal in the coming months.

The general consensus from the crypto community seems to be that next year is too soon to see mass adoption of crypto. We first need scaling solutions, investor buy-in, enterprise integration, tighter security, and, of course, regulation. But who knows what’s in store for 2020? That’s a little harder to gauge. 

The post Top 7 Cryptocurrency Predictions for 2019 appeared first on NullTX.

These are very interesting times for the cryptocurrency industry. Even though Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to lose value nearly every single day, the exciting action is taking place in the middle of the pack. Dash, a prominent altcoin, is currently going through a major dip despite positive developments, It seems to be a matter of time until this trend reverses.

Dash Price Trend Makes Little Sense

No one will be really surprised to learn the Dash price is coming down a bit after nearly hitting $200 last week. Such a massive uptrend cannot be sustained indefinitely, and a correction was bound to occur. As such, a dip to the $180 range seems to be more than fair, albeit some users may be concerned about such a steep drop. It is not uncommon in the cryptocurrency world by any means.

Despite a lot of positive news becoming apparent last week, it seems Dash is unable to buck the overall bearish trend across all cryptocurrencies. That is not entirely unsurprising, although it seems to make little sense to expect even further losses at this stage. There will be a turning point sooner or later, especially because Bitcoin is not losing significant amounts of value as of right now.

When it comes to looking at the current batch of privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies, it seems Dash is not necessarily the most popular. Although a Twitter poll is no official indicator whatsoever, it does show there is a lot more support for PIVX at this stage. Dash is still ahead of Monero in the rankings, whereas ZCash is almost irrelevant in this poll. Very interesting statistics, albeit with little value attributed to them.

Privacy in crypto is very important! These coins are doing really well, but who's your favorite? $PIVX $XMR $Dash $ZEC #PIVX @_pivx #XMR @monero #Monero #DASH @Dashpay #ZEC #zcash @zcashco

— Altcoin Magazine (@Alt__Magazine) September 5, 2018

There is more positive Dash news to kick off this week as well. The altcoin is now listed on the AlteumX exchange. While a relatively unknown platform among most cryptocurrency traders, any exposure can do wonders for alternative cryptocurrencies. Although no fiat gateways are offered at this stage. It is still a positive development, all things considered.

New listing! #DASH has been listed in #AlteumX Exchange

start trading https://t.co/PfwQsKsrt8 pic.twitter.com/wlN57DWACL

— Alteum (@Alteum_Official) September 10, 2018

Secondly, there is a new project on the horizon known as Neptune Dash It is a new service provider designed to offer masternode pooling for Dash owners. To put this into perspective, the firm will let users pool funds to run masternodes and receive a portion of the payouts based on their invested stake. It is a very interesting business model which will undoubtedly attract a lot of attention.

Despite the current negative Dash price trend, there is no real reason for concern just yet. This momentum cannot last for much longer, as all markets look heavily oversold at this stage. The Dash price will seemingly return to $200 before the year is over, although predicting an exact timeline is mere guessing work at this stage.

The post Dash Price: Return to $200 is Imminent As Masternode Pooling Comes Closer appeared first on NullTX.

A new ruling by a federal judge in New York has put Initial Coin Offerings under the umbrella of securities law, in a first-of-its-kind legal case against a man charged with promoting digital currencies that were supposedly backed by non-existent real estate and diamonds.

The case, being held in a Brooklyn, New York, court, ultimately resulted in a win for federal prosecutors, who gained Judge Raymond Dearie’s favor in both the prosecution of the defendant, Maksim Zaslavskiy, and as the classification of Initial Coin Offerings as securities.

The ruling regarding the classification of ICOs was a key part to the case because Zaslavskiy’s lawyers built their case on the premise that “security laws are unconstitutionally vague as applied.”

Judge Dearie responded to the defendant’s claim, saying that:

“Congress’ purpose in enacting the securities laws was to regulate investments, in whatever form they are made and by whatever name they are called… Stripped of the 21st-century jargon, including the defendant’s own characterization of the offered investment opportunities, the challenged indictment charges a straightforward scam, replete with the common characteristics of many financial frauds.”

SEC Charges ICO Superstore with Operating as Unregistered Broker-Dealer Following Ruling

Following the ruling by Judge Dearie regarding the classification of ICOs as securities, the SEC announced that they had charged and reached agreements with two companies and their owners that were operating illegally in the US.

The first company charged by the SEC is TokenLot, a self-described ICO Superstore, that settled charges with the SEC as operating as an unregistered broker-dealer. The SEC also charged the owners of the site, noting that Lenny Kugel and Eli L. Lewitt had “promoted TokenLot’s website as a way to purchase digital tokens during initial coin offerings (ICOs) and also to engage in secondary trading.”

According to the SEC, the Michigan-based company has received over 6,100 orders from investors for more than 200 digital token offerings, many of which the SEC deemed as securities. In order to offer securities to US-based investors, companies must register as a broker-dealer, and if they don’t they can be subjected to multiple charges.

Stephanie Avakian, the Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, spoke about the importance of broker-dealer registration, saying:

“U.S. securities laws protect investors by subjecting broker-dealers and other gatekeepers to SEC oversight, including those offering ICOs and secondary trading in digital tokens. We continue to encourage those developing digital asset trading businesses to contact the SEC staff at [email protected] for assistance in analyzing registration and other securities law requirements.”

It is important to note that although TokenLot was operating illegally, they cooperated fully with the SEC, which led to much lighter charges than their actions would have otherwise resulted in.

Steven Peikin, also the Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, discussed TokenLot’s cooperation, saying:

“The penalties in this case reflect the prompt cooperation and remedial actions by TokenLot, Kugel, and Lewitt. TokenLot, Kugel, and Lewitt provided valuable information to Commission staff, stopped the conduct, and refunded money to investors.”

In addition to settling the charges with TokenLot, the SEC also moved against Crypto Asset Management LP (CAM), a cryptocurrency hedge fund that had been operating illegally in the US, while falsely claiming to be the “first regulated crypto asset fund in the United States.”

The fund’s manager, Timothy Enneking, had raised more than $3.6 million over a four-month period from investors, while falsely claiming that his operation was completely registered with the SEC. Also, the SEC claims that more than 40% of the assets in his fund are digital securities, making his fund an unregistered investment company.

Dabney O’Riordan, the SEC’s Co-Chief of the Asset Management Unit, spoke about the rise of unregistered crypto hedge funds, saying:

“Hedge funds seeking to ride the digital asset wave continue to proliferate. Investment advisers must be sure that the funds they offer adhere to the applicable registration obligations and must accurately represent their funds’ regulatory status to investors.”

It is likely that the SEC will begin moving to charge more illegally operating funds and companies following the classification of ICOs as security offerings.

Featured image from Shutterstock

The post US Court Ruling: Initial Coin Offerings Covered by Securities Law appeared first on NewsBTC.

Why the IPO might become the new ICO in the crypto world

New York judge rules that U.S. securities laws are applicable for prosecuting crypto fraud allegations