Day: September 14, 2018

Europe

Welcome to our weekly roundup of all important blockchain and cryptocurrency news from around the world. Follow the latest developments in the cryptocurrency space continent by continent, country by country.

European Union

EU Commission believes crypto has a future: The Vice President of the European Commission has said that cryptocurrencies will definitely have a place in the future at the second Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) press conference.

Vladis Dombrovokis said in his speech:

“We also had a good exchange of views on crypto-assets. We see that crypto-assets are here to stay. Despite the recent turbulence, this market continues to grow… In particular, initial coin offerings, or ICOs, we see they have the potential to emerge as a viable form of alternative financing. Already last year, ICOs helped raise over USD 6 billion in funding and this year this figure will be substantially bigger.”

He also pointed out the main issues posed by digital currencies including legislation and regulation.

Ireland

Women blockchain forum launched to advance awareness: Blockchain Women Ireland (BWI) was launched in the Republic of Ireland to raise further awareness of the blockchain sector and get more and more women involved in it.

The forum will also promote blockchain and cryptocurrencies as a potential career for Irish women and keep them apprised of the useful educational opportunities in the country.

UK

Financial regulator calls for balanced crypto approach: UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) top executive has called for a “balanced approach” towards cryptocurrencies in a speech last Tuesday.

He made these comments in the FCA’s Annual Public Meeting and said that it was “keen to see the potential of the underlying technology”. He also said that FCA is not ruling out cryptoassets for itself.

France

Football club to launch own crypto: French football champions Paris Saint-Germain has announced that the club will undergo an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to incentivize supporters over a blockchain.

The club has announced a partnership with top blockchain company Socios.com for this purpose. The partnership is similar to the one already existing within in the fanbase of famed clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona. It will give way to a crowd management concept for the football club.

Iceland

Financial watchdog announces registration of first crypto exchange: Iceland’s top financial regulator Financial Supervisory Authority (FME) has announced the registration of the first cryptocurrency exchange in the country.

The move comes after years of attempts by cryptocurrency exchanges to get in the tiny Scandinavian country. The exchange allowed is called Skiptimynt and will allow two trading pairs for now including Krona/BTC and Krona/Aurora.

The country is already a cryptocurrency mining haven because of its cold climate but cryptocurrency trading and exchanges have had difficulties getting into the market before.

Russia

Central bank announces successful ICO experiment: The deputy director of the Bank of Russia (BoR) has said that the trial experiment of an ICO was a technical success, paving way for further research and new projects.

According to local news outlet TASS, Ivan Semagin, the deputy director in question broke this news in an Easter Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia. While everything was technically all right, he did mention that the experiment showed several legal issues with the ICO that the government needs to look into.

BoR is rapidly experimenting with blockchain and cryptocurrencies and has developed a regulatory platform in April this year already for local businesses. Russia is also experimenting with a blockchain-based voting system.

 

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The post Europe: Crypto and Blockchain News Roundup, 7th to 13th September 2018 appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Determining the pain points of a blockchain or cryptocurrency can be done in many different ways. In the case of Bitcoin Cash, a proper stress test was conducted a little while ago The results are rather promising, and a lot of valuable information was obtained. The following key findings are ranked in term of overall importance.

#5 Bringing the Pressure is Easy

It is always good to see a stress test be successful because increasing the number of transactions does not pose any real problems. In the case of Bitcoin Cash, the stress test has been quite successful, as the number of transactions was ten times higher compared to the regular throughput. A promising sign for the future, and it allowed the developers and community to observe all of the results accordingly.

#4 Over 2 million Transactions Completed

Stressing a cryptocurrency network can usually incur some delays and issues along the way. In the case of the 2018 BCH Stress Test Day, over 2.2 million transactions were executed without any problem whatsoever. This is primarily achieved because of the project’s different approach to scaling, which makes it very different from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the market today.

#3 Big Blocks Are Flowing

A stress test on this scale can only be executed with the help of all mining pools. For the BCH test, all major mining pools successfully processed a lot of large blocks. Some of these network blocks were 15MB in size, further indicating the bigger block approach by this altcoin is no unnecessary luxury when it comes to scaling cryptocurrencies to the next level. There is a proposal on the table to further increase the maximum BCH block size fairly soon.

#2 A New Big Block Record

At one point during the 2018 BCH stress test, a network block was generated at a size of 23.15MB. This is an absolute record in the world of cryptocurrency, and further shows it is good to have higher limits in place for this particular network. One as to keep in mind this is an exception rather than the norm, but it is still interesting to see regardless.

#1 Low Fees Remain in Place

Spending cryptocurrency usually hinges on how expensive it is to broadcast a transaction. In the case of Bitcoin Cash, this stress test did not inflate the overall transaction cost in a significant manner. Most network transactions during this test were completed at a fee of $0.001, which is incredibly cheap.

Conclusion

Users will need to keep in mind this stress test is not a viable representation of regular Bitcoin Cash network activity. A lot more transactions were processed compared to how things go on a day-to-day basis. Even so, preparing for what may come in the future is never a bad idea. Bitcoin Cash appears to hold all of the cards in this regard. How things will pan out moving forward, remains up in the air.

The post Bitcoin Cash Stress Test – 5 Interesting Things That Happened appeared first on NullTX.

Newsblocks is trying to end the “fake news” plague and use blockchain technology in a  meaningful manner. Whether the project will succeed, is a different matter altogether. Building a decentralized platform for trusted news applications will be quite challenging.

The NewsBlocks Concept

It has become apparent accessing reliable andaccurate news is a lot more as of late. Numerous reasons attribute to this worrisome trend. A lot of information is not necessarily correct, and there is a growing online censorship campaign as well. Newsblocks wants to solve this problem by converting the world’s news into verified data and store it on a blockchain.

How Does it Work?

Putting the world’s news on a blockchain is not necessarily a unique business proposal. However, doing so in a tamper-proof manner through verified data is something else entirely. NewsBlocks aims to build a decentralized platform where developers can build their news-related applications and fees. As such, the technology will become accessible to everyone in the world.

What is rather interesting is how Newsblocks acknowledges weeding out fake news is of the utmost importance. The information processed by this blockchain will be put through fact checkers and fake news detectors, as well as chatbots. Building a global news archive will be challenging, but the associated decentralized marketplace for news and data can make good things happen in this regard.

Another interesting aspect about NewsBlocks is how it uses shared rewards to aggregate more data. More specifically, contributors will be rewarded in the native Newsblocks tokens for their submissions one the information is verified accordingly. Incentivizing users to keep using this platform and continue to submit content is a great way to remain relevant, albeit its long-term impact remains difficult to predict.

The NewsBlocks Token

It is not uncommon for blockchain platforms to issue their own tokens in this day and age. NewsBlocks is no different in this regard, as its token will be sold through an ICO in Q4 of 2018. It will serve as a reward for news contributors, albeit other use cases will become apparent over time. The token will play a role in terms of the decentralized marketplace, albeit its exact purpose remains a bit unclear.

The Road Ahead

It is interesting to note how the NewsBlocks team seemingly has a plan in place for the coming three years. The current focus is on attracting developers to build more distributed applications, as well as further building the marketplace infrastructure accordingly. It is a very interesting concept which can transform the news industry. Getting consumers to use these applications however, will be a different matter altogether.

The post What is NewsBlocks? appeared first on NullTX.

Asia and Australia

Welcome to our weekly roundup of all important blockchain and cryptocurrency news from around the world. Follow the latest developments in the cryptocurrency space continent by continent, country by country.

Japan

Financial regulator adds more experts for crypto license applications: The Japanese financial regulator Financial Services Agency (FSA) has announced that more individuals are being added to its 30-strong team for cryptocurrency exchange license applications in the country.

Cryptocurrencies and exchanges are doing a roaring business right now with more and more players looking to enter the market. FSA is trying to strike a balance between newcomers to promote competition and security of Japanese investors.

According to reports from Japan, there are over 160 applications pending from companies in the space with some big names looking to enter the market.

South Korea

Firm offering insurance against hacking of crypto exchanges: Cryptocurrency exchange operators in the country can now get their exchanges insured against hacking attempts to cover for sizable losses that happen from time to time.

The new offer from Hanwha Insurance means that domestic South Korean exchanges will now have an option for an additional layer of security.

A representative of the Insurance company said:

“It is not a product that has to be compulsory, but it can be outlined if we discuss how much demand there will be. Even if the exchange wants to join, it will require as much coordination as the insurance and reinsurance companies need to meet in order to get insurance.”

Hacked exchanges are a big problem in South Korea as more than USD 500 million worth of coins have already been hacked from major exchanges in the country this year alone.

China

Government to track donations with the help of blockchain technology: The Chinese government is planning to implement blockchain technology to track charitable donations made in the country through their Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA).

The Chinese government has always been wary of donations and charities that could be misused against the integrity of the country. The ministry has announced a four-year plan for charities to enhance governmental outreach and transparency in the field. NGOs and other charitable organizations will be made to held accountable for all donations through this under-development system.

Uzbekistan

Government looking for South Korean blockchain expertise: South Korea’s blockchain expertise has found overseas admiration and demand as other countries like Uzbekistan are looking to them for developing blockchain industry in their own country.

The Central Asian country recently legalized cryptocurrency trading in the country and has announced initial regulations for mining and trading in the country as well as a state-owned coin trading platform. It is in that regards that the government has sought help from the Korean Blockchain Business Association for help. The government is also looking to offer specialized educational courses in its local universities.

Australia

Driver’s license to be based on blockchain technology: The Australian government has announced that blockchain technology will now be incorporated into public services as part of its forward-thinking approach. The government will trial a digital drivers’ license backed by blockchain in Sydney.

The move is part of a concerted effort to deploy blockchain for better governance. The move will give 140,000 license holders an access to the newly-developed secure Logic TrustGrid license.

The tech behind the blockchain drivers’ license was developed by Australian data security company Secure Logic’s platform. The company is looking to partner with the government for further projects because of the potential of the technology.

 

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The post Asia and Australia: Crypto and Blockchain News Roundup, 7th to 13th September 2018 appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Tether, despite questions surrounding its finances, remains the dominant stablecoin. Following a recent announcement, is that starting to change?

With new regulation on cryptocurrency set to be released in the next few days, the Philippine crypto community holds its breath

As the competition among stablecoins heats up in the cryptocurrency world, it is rather interesting to see how popular each offering is as of right now. The results are a bit surprising. The following 5 stablecoins are ranked by their current daily volume.

#5 BitCNY

In the cryptocurrency world, very few people seem to pay attention to stablecoins which are not pegged to the US Dollar. In the case of BitCNY, it is a market-pegged currency linked to the Chinese Yuan and issued on the BitShares protocol. This currency has seen a volume of $12.2m in the past 24 hours, indicating it is somewhat popular It is primarily traded on CoinTiger, the BitShares Asset Exchange, and Openledger DEX.

#4 Dai

Despite Dai becoming a proper stablecoin prior to some more recent competitors emerging, it seems to be less popular than some of those newer offerings. A daily transaction volume of $13m is not bad, but it is not sufficient to bring much-needed competition to TrueUSD, Tether, and others. Dai is primarily traded on HitBTC, Radar Relay, Ethfinex, OasisDEX, and Kyber Network, among others.

#3 TrueUSD

The listing of TrueUSD on Bittrex and Binance should be sufficient to catapult this stablecoin to a new level. So far, that has not happened just yet, as its daily volume of $15m is less than stellar. Even so, its volume is slowly picking up steam, which can only be considered to be a good thing. TrueUSD is primarily used on Binance, Bittrex, CoinTiger, Zebpay, and HBUS.

#2 CK USD

It is a bit unclear why the demand for CK USD is picking up all of a sudden. While it is good to see traders explore options beyond Tether in terms of stablecoins, CK USD is not necessarily a concept most people are familiar with. The current 24-hour volume of $142.2m tells a very different story, although there are numerous questions raised regarding this figure.

BCEX and Allcoin are the two primary exchanges for CK USD usage. However, BCEX controls nearly 60% of the market, primarily through its BTC and ETH pairs. Allcoins BTC and ETH pairs are not that far behind in volume as of right now. However, BCEX has a lot more pairs linked to CK USD, including ETC, XRP, EOS, and so forth. An interesting development worth keeping an eye on.

#1 Tether’s USDT

It is safe to say no stablecoin will rival Tether’s USDT anytime soon. Its trading volume is off the charts, as it is the second-most traded asset behind Bitcoin. With over $3 billion in 24-hour volume, the asset also generates more trading volume than its total market cap value on a nearly daily basis. Top exchanges for USDT activity are BitForex, Binance, Huobi, and OKEx. The $2.6bn in volume form BitForex’s BTC pair is still excluded on CMC, which makes one wonder what is going on over there exactly.

The post Top 5 Stablecoins Ranked by Trading Volume appeared first on NullTX.

Despite the broad-based pessimism among cryptocurrency speculators, there are facts that speak by themselves – the numbers. Do you know that even in the environment of the crypto bubble bursting in December 2017, those who bought crypto a year ago are still in profit.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

Bitcoin during the recent 12 months has gained more than 100%, Litecoin appreciated by 60%, and Ethereum added 50% in value. Taking a shorter period, during the recent month Bitcoin managed to rise by 8%, while Litecoin and Ethereum lost just around 10%.

Let’s compare it to more traditional assets. NASDAQ 100, the leader of growth among indices, appreciated by 25% during the last 12 months, and in the previous month it rose only 3,3%. Even Brent Crude Oil that has been experiencing the bullish trend due to the end of oil wars between the Middle East and the USA managed to surge only by 40% from last August.

From Earlier Adopters To Mass Market

Digital assets are only starting to attract the attention of the mass auditory. The hype we saw at the end of last year was driven mainly by early adopters. This hypothesis is proved by the number of companies and institutions taking measures to come closer to the crypto industry.

In early August, the Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, confirmed its plans to establish a new company that would offer “consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets on a seamless global network.”

It means that very soon a horde of large-scale investors will enter the market, and one should be prepared for that.

Cloud Mining Saves From Risk

If you don’t want to take risks of buying and holding cryptocurrency, you may try to mine it. If you still have doubts, it’s not necessary to purchase costly equipment and to waste money paying electricity bills. You can try renting hashing power from the service provider with the help of cloud mining.

Take, for example, cloud mining of Ethereum. According to Cryptocompare calculator, the profit per year is about $1,424 with 3.59 ETH mined during this period. With cloud mining services cost deducted, your annual net profit is around 886 US dollars. And it’s even more profitable if you buy an unlimited contract. Hashtoro.com service offers unlimited ETH contracts for $2,610. It means that in three years you will get stable profit without any need to think of equipment or to look after your rig.

In Bitcoin’s case, cloud mining may become even more profitable, as the cryptocurrency keeps attracting the attention of the mass market showing a higher rate of appreciation. The total revenue at the current exchange rate will be around $870 annually.

However, it is essential to take into account that the world of cryptocurrencies is highly volatile and dynamic. And these numbers will rise and fall accordingly with the movements of prices of these cryptocurrencies.

About Hashtoro

The company was founded in May 2018. Hashtoro.com is a cloud mining cryptocurrency service. It offers a safe and simple way to get computing power to start cloud mining bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum. The company provides cryptocurrency solutions for both everyday users and business entities. Hashtoro is suitable whether you want to get into mining on a low budget or diversify your current portfolio.

The company’s data centers are set up in Finland and Norway. Countries, favorable to the crypto industry.

Primary competitor’s advantage is that the company offers low budget cloud mining opportunities. The cheapest cloud-mining contract will cost just 20 €.

Moreover, Hashtoro’s infrastructure is powered exclusively by renewable energy. The hot air generated by mining is directed into heat pumps, while the hot water is pumped into the adjacent heating systems. This is why hashtoro.com  has become one of the most profitable and ecologically safe cloud mining services.

This is a sponsored article and does not reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of NullTX. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

The post Why Is Bitcoin Better Than Traditional Investments? appeared first on NullTX.

Starting Monday, the beta phase for the Tezos blockchain will be over.

ICO regulation proposed by French minister of economy and finance accepted by government

Tipbots play an important role in the world of cryptocurrency. These convenient solutions have the potential to introduce thousands, if not millions of dollars in value to specific cryptocurrencies over time. In the case of Reddcoin, its popular Twitter tipbot will be shut down completely and users are advised to withdraw funds as soon as possible.

Reddcoin Twitter Tipbot Termination

Users of the popular Twitter tipbot for Reddcoin may have noticed the service hasn’t been optimal for several days now. In fact, interacting with the bot through the normal means has not been possible for some time now. A direct message to the bot will work and yield the relevant information. However, it seems this service will not return to its original functionality, as the project will be shut down completely.

The reason for this sudden development is not difficult to find. Twitter has begun making vast changes to its social media platform. Although most of these changes do not impact the user directly, it can create problems for select services running on top of this social media platform through its API. In the case of the Reddcoin tipbot, the current API and endpoints make it impossible to resume the service as normal.

This is a very unfortunate development for the Reddcoin community. Users are advised to withdraw any funds in their tipbot account balance as soon as possible. Any funds remaining in the wallets past October 1st will be considered abandoned. Those funds will then be donated to the Reddcoin Core development team to use as they see fit.

It is interesting to note this is not the end of Reddcoin tipping on Twitter, though. Albeit the ease-of-use of the tipbot will come to an end, a new solution has already presented itself. The native ReddID extension, an integral part of Reddcoin’s future development, can hook into Twitter and other social networks accordingly. This unlocks a lot of new functionality as more time progresses.

One option worth exploring in this regard is a solution to tip RDD on Twitter, as well as the other social networks. This can be achieved through the new Electrum wallet infrastructure to send tips across these networks in the future. The functionality is not fully complete yet, but there will be a life for RDD on Twitter once the tipbot is shut down completely.

It is also worth noting this Twitter tipbot “demise” will not affect the Reddcoin Telegram bot, for the time being. That service will transition to the new Electrum infrastructure over time, but it will continue to operate as normal until this change is effectively introduced.  In a way, this is a clear sign of how the Reddcoin ecosystem continues to grow and evolve, despite some minor setbacks along the way.

The post Reddcoin Twitter Tipbot is Shutting Down but ReddID Will Save the day appeared first on NullTX.

France is continuing to follow President Macron’s plan raise its business profile in the world by establishing a legal framework for ICOs.

A recent Autorité des Marchés Financier (AMF) annual report indicated that ICOs are most definitely on the agenda for further regulatory framework as Robert Ophèle, President of the AMF, indicated that the government body would:

“…continue to reflect on changes in the regulatory framework in the face of new offers, in particular, the Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), and to promote at European level the French regulator’s approach to innovation.”

The government has now taken one step further with a new announcement by finance minister Bruno Le Maire that the corresponding legislation, Article 26, had now been “adopted in (parliamentary) committee”, to improve business growth in the country, adding, “This legal framework will attract innovators from around the world of blockchain…”

Article 26 adopté en commission #PACTE !

Un cadre juridique des #ICO est créé. L’@AMF_actu pourra délivrer un visa aux acteurs respectant des critères de protection des épargnants
Ce cadre juridique va attirer les innovateurs du monde entier #blockchain #DirectAN

— Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) September 12, 2018

The legislation will allow the AMF to now approve businesses wanting to launch ICOs in France, given certain criteria are met by companies that “those projects provide specific guarantees for investors”.

Law firm Kramer Levin sees the new legislation providing a clear a definition of tokens for would-be French investors, suggesting that a token is:

“An intangible property representing, in numerical form, one or more rights that can be issued, registered, conserved or transferred using a shared electronic registration mechanism that facilitates the identification, directly or indirectly, of the owner of said property.”

After the lackluster and largely ineffective government led by previous president Francois Holland, Macron’s new regime has taken businesses to task with real vigor in an attempt to refresh outmoded business practices and regulations and inspire overseas faith in a new forward-looking approach, largely driven by government.

President Macron is seen by those that know him well and experts in the sector as a pro-tech leader, believing that he will further the interests of startups in the crypto industry as part of his business rejuvenation plan for the nation.

 

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The post New French ICO Framework Attracts Innovation, Boosts Macron’s Business Plan appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.