Day: September 17, 2018

Privacy and security issues continue to dog the cryptocurrency exchange industry, but not for long. Aidos Kuneen (ADK), a open source platform focused on both privacy and scalability, has developed a novel solution with its novel application of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

A New Era of Banking

Unlike existing blockchains, which still experience their own fair share of privacy concerns, Aidos Kuneen uses DAG (directed acyclic graph) to develop a new distributed ledger for the direct verification of transactions. Geared towards ensuring greater legitimacy and a more secure environment for the nascent crypto industry, ADK aims to bring about operational transparency to cryptocurrency exchanges. These have come under criticism in recent times due to opacity in their methods of storage and exchange of funds on centralized exchanges.  

To further secure the privacy of its ecosystem for users, ADK will be backing up the exchange of funds through physical banking facilities, having acquired 16% shares in Sumac Bank in Kenya and 23% in a Tanzanian bank (official announcement coming soon) to establish its presence in Africa. The company is set to expand into the EU region and is currently awaiting approvals for the launch of its EU-based bank. Adding the EU-based bank is part of efforts to create an enviable crypto-friendly banking network that will also offer remote account opening and debit card services.

Following the launch of the bank, Aidos Kuneen (ADK) will offer a 5% share of the bank to 20 trustworthy cryptocurrency exchanges for improved transparency, credibility, and auditability of operations.

Banking veteran and founder of the company, Ricardo Badoer, says:

“Since its launch in June 2017, the ADK project prides itself as one the few credible in the industry not to have conducted neither an ICO nor airdrops or pay for unnecessary hypes. Rather, it has been positioning itself to be the go-to platform for, among other things, offshore banking which projection says will produce more than 90% of crypto value in the next decade.”

The founder also noted that this is the first time a blockchain platform will undertake such action in enhancing crypto-exchanges’ performance and ensuring cryptocurrency users have  access to secure and trusted service, while giving worthy cryptocurrency projects the right recognition and exposure.

ADK aims to be a both a crypto-friendly banking network and a physical bank for the seamless exchange, storage, and transaction of funds. The company will provide banking services including debit cards and remote account opening, while ensuring the privacy of users.

Building Forward

A recent research by Satis Group, an independent equity research provider, Satis Group, published by Bloomberg revealed that by 2028, the cryptocurrency market would have reached a $3.6 trillion USD market cap with 90%+ of asset value derived from penetration of offshore deposits. The research also predicted Offshore Deposits to start rising in a year or two due to countries’ increased capital restraints, fiat devaluation, national debt, budget deficit, and unfavourable fiscal policy.

In preparing for the launch of the the bank, ADK has recently upgraded its system boasting Proof-of-Work (POW) transaction confirmations down to 3 seconds. The second stage of this upgrade will improve anonymity with through a brand new protocol, AKshuffle. This protocol shuffles and mixes up all transactions.

About Aidos Kuneen (ADK)

An open source, commissionless trading platform, ADK, was founded in 2017 by Ricardo Badoer as a Quantum secure and scalable platform without actual blocks. Designed to be a privacy chain, ADK transaction system is  built to protect users’ identities via a complex and technical protocol. ADK is backed by the Aidos Foundation.

Visit the website: http://aidoskuneen.com/

ADK Github: https://t.co/zWudEswsg5

ADK Whitepaper: www.github.com/AidosKuneen/whitepaper/releases

AidosMarketWatch: mw.adk.uno

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Image Courtesy: Aidos Kuneen

The post Aidos (ADK) Offers First-of-its-Kind Free Share in EU-Bank to Crypto Exchanges appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Bancor has announced plans to launch on EOS, expanding its decentralized token exchange protocol to a second blockchain.

Buying cryptocurrency remains a major hurdle for most consumers in this day and age. This problem is only compounded when users are looking to diversify their portfolio, as numerous hoops need to be jumped through. The Coinbase Bundle offers some interesting advantages in this regard. Below are four reasons to buy such a bundle, ranked in terms of overall appeal.

#4 Solid Availability

Coinbase is one of the world’s biggest centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. The company has successfully expanded in numerous jurisdictions. As such, the Coinbase Bundle will be available to clients across the European Union, United Kingdom, and the United States. These are also the three most active regions in terms of Coinbase users at this stage.

#3 No Extra Fees

Although users get a lot of convenience in return for buying a Coinbase Bundle, the package does not enlist any additional fees. Users will pay the same surcharge as if they were buying the cryptocurrencies which make up this bundle themselves. That means there is a 1.5% commission on the fiat value of each currency purchased. As this bundle encompasses five currencies, it would evoke the same fees as if buying all five of them separately.

#2 Diversification is Key

Investing in cryptocurrency is no longer about buying just Bitcoin or Ethereum. Instead, speculators and investors need to begin diversifying their portfolio as soon as possible. The Coinbase bundle makes this process a bit easier, as it supports five digital currencies at this time. Those currencies include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ethereum Classic.

It is worth noting users will not buy the number of coins for every supported currency. Instead, every bundle’s allocation is based on the price of each currency multiplied by the supply of that currency in circulation. As such, users will get fewer BTC – in terms of actual coins – but more ETC, because it has a lower market price. It is an interesting system that does most of the legwork on behalf of consumers automatically.

#1 You Decide the Amount

Cryptocurrency trading is not necessarily about giving users any say as to how much they must spend to buy a “good” amount of cryptocurrencies. This is especially true when it comes to purchasing multiple currencies. With the Coinbase Bundle, anyone can own these five currencies for as little as $25, 25 GBP, or 25 Euro. It is a small amount to invest in five currencies which all seemingly have long-term growth potential.

Surprisingly enough, Coinbase has not implemented an upper limit for their Coinbase Bundle purchases. There is a daily limit purchase amount based on a user’s verification limit, but that entire limit can be spent on this bundle every single day if the user so desires. It is still advised users send the coins purchased to a wallet under their personal account shortly after buying the funds, otherwise, it will remain in Coinbase’s custody.  

The post 4 Reasons Why Purchasing a Coinbase Bundle Makes Sense appeared first on NullTX.

Ripple’s settlement system that uses a combination of blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies may be going live within the next month or so, according to a statement from a company executive.

The product, which utilizes XRP to complete real-time cross border settlements, has already struck some high-profile partnerships, and many investors see it as the main use case of XRP.

While speaking to CNBC, Sagar Sarbhai, Ripple’s head of regulatory relations for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, said that the company has made significant progress towards the official launch of its xRapid product, and that it will only be a short matter of time before the product goes live.

During the interview, Sarbhai said that:

“I am very confident that in the next one month or so you will see some good news coming in where we launch the product live in production.”

xRapid is unique from Ripple’s other blockchain-based settlement system, xCurrent, in that it utilizes XRP and the XRP ledger in order to facilitate cheap and instant cross border transactions, with the product being specifically marketed towards banks and other financial institutions.

The product allows a group, like a bank, to convert their fiat currency to XRP, which is then sent to the receiving party, and quickly converted to the receiving party’s fiat currency. This system completes these processes automatically, allowing fiat currency to be converted and moved to anywhere in the world in an incredibly short amount of time as compared to current settlement systems.

Many XRP detractors claim that the xRapid system will not be widely adopted by banks and other financial institutions, and that its creation was the company’s attempt to create a use case for XRP, which is closely related to the company. That being said, the company has signed on some major partners to work with their xRapid system in beta, including Santander Bank, American Express, MoneyGram, Western Union, and SBI Japan.

These partnerships in their current state are trial runs with xRapid or with xCurrent, but Ripple is confident that many of the company’s xCurrent customers will eventually move to xRapid.

Sarbhai also said in the interview that more than 120 banks and financial institutions are currently partnered with Ripple in order to utilize their suite of blockchain products to increase the efficiency of their settlement systems through the use of xCurrent.

Rumors Surfaced Regarding a New Ripple Product

Recently, rumors surfaced claiming that Ripple may be implementing a new system that will combine Ripple’s xCurrent, xRapid, and xVia products into one solution called Convergence. The rumors regarding this new product first surfaced in early August, when Jim Chauncey-Kelly, Ripple’s director of talent acquisition, spoke to Interview Now, saying that:

“Earlier in the year, a big part of what my team was focused on was hiring a lot of engineering. This was probably our biggest push because we are building a software called Convergence that syncs together all of our 3 major products into one seamless format.”

Rumors swirled regarding this new product, but all the tweets from Kelly regarding the release of this new product were promptly deleted, and no further clarification was offered. In a since deleted tweet, Kelly stated that:

“Hi All – for clarity — we have 3 products – xCurrent (in production) and 2 more on the way – xVia & xRapid. They will be on a ‘convergence’ release soon. There isn’t a software actually called ‘convergence.’”

It is unclear what affect the release of xRapid will have on XRP’s price or liquidity, but Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s CEO, is confident that the product will be widely adopted, saying that “dozens” of banks will be using the product by the end of 2019.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The post Ripple’s XRP Product xRapid May Go Live in the Next Month appeared first on NewsBTC.

This week Bitcoin Cash (BCH) fans were pleased to hear another well-known merchant is now supporting BCH for payments. The South Korea-based food dispatch platform called Shuttle Delivery now accepts BCH for door-to-door meal deliveries throughout the Seoul region.

Also read: Gemini Dollar Code Review Reveals the Stablecoin’s Accounts Can Be Frozen

Food Service Shuttle Delivery in South Korea Now Accepts Bitcoin Cash

People visiting and residents of the Seoul region in South Korea can now use bitcoin cash to pay for tasty cuisine delivered straight to their door. The firm, Shuttle Delivery, is a South Korean food delivery platform that people can use to order meals with their mobile devices. The application is available in Korean and English and for both Android mobile phones and iOS as well. Shuttle Delivery not only accepts traditional credit cards and Paypal but yesterday, on September 16, a website update revealed that it offers full bitcoin cash acceptance. The Shuttle Delivery application connects BCH users in South Korea to 200+ local restaurants.

“Shuttle Delivery provides delivery services from a variety of Seoul’s best restaurants,” explains the company’s website. “So you can enjoy the best food in the comfort of your home, office, or wherever you happen to be! We offer a fully bilingual service where customers can place orders in either English or Korean (한국어).”

‘Buying Food for the In-Laws Without Kissing Visa’s Ring’

The wide variety of restaurants available to order from using Shuttle Delivery includes local Korean, American Grill, Italian, Indian, Vegetarian, Turkish, and European food.

BCH fans on r/btc were elated to hear about Shuttle Delivery accepting bitcoin cash for door-to-door food delivery. One BCH supporter writes that they are pleased to not have to use a credit card to buy food for relatives.     

“This is nice,” says the BCH proponent u/ricardotown on Reddit.  

I can now internationally buy food for my in-laws without kissing Visa’s ring.

Shuttle Delivery in South Korea is not the only meal transport service that accepts bitcoin cash. The platform Takeaway.com also accepts BCH which and it connects over 30,000+ restaurants throughout Europe and Vietnam to bitcoin cash customers. This includes the well-known online German food marketplace Lieferando.de, a subsidiary of Takeaway.

What do you think about Shuttle Delivery in South Korea accepting bitcoin cash for payments? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comment section below.

Images via Shutterstock, and Shuttle Delivery in South Korea.  

Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section.

The post Seoul-Based Food Delivery Service Now Accepts Bitcoin Cash appeared first on Bitcoin News.

US-based technology company Ripple has announced a partnership with Saudi Arabia’s largest bank, the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia (NCB).

Ripple’s network of banks and payment providers known as Ripplenet plays the predominant role in the terms of the partnership, with NCB agreeing to use the service for connecting with other financial institutions. Ripplenet claims to provide a more economical, standardized and legally streamlined method for international money transfers.

The partnership will open up NCB to companies first in Singapore, then Asia and North America – all regions that the Saudi bank previously did not have access to. The commercial bank was first established in 1953 and claims 400 branches across Saudi Arabia, with over 5.4 million customers globally.

XRP, the Ripple network’s local token, can be used by banks to source liquidity on demand in real time, with no pre-funding of nostro accounts (accounts that a bank holds in a foreign currency in another bank) required. Payment providers can also benefit from using XRP in terms of saving costs on foreign exchange rates and enjoying a faster payment settlement.

According to Ripple, XRP payments can be settled in four seconds, as opposed to the several minutes Ethereum transfers take and Bitcoin payments that sometimes require up to an hour to be approved.

Islam and crypto

Saudi Arabia’s legal system is founded on the Islamic Sharia law. As Bitcoin News reported earlier this month, the first fully Sharia-compliant cryptocurrency exchange has now launched in the UAE.

While Islam prohibits fractional reserve lending which underpins most fiat currencies, cryptocurrency is based on the logistics of scarcity. Academic discussions on the subject have suggested that cryptocurrencies may be, in fact, more Sharia-compliant than fiat.

In April, Islamic scholar Mufti Muhammad Abu Bakar published a paper detailing how the majority of the time Bitcoin is Halal (permissible), with the caveat that illicit use of the cryptocurrency or use of it in countries where it is prohibited by local laws are not Sharia-compliant.

As Muslims account for around 23% of the world’s population, they may yet become a powerful force in the market.

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The EOS ecosystem is abuzz with dApps and other blockchain-based projects. Since the launch of the project’s main net, things have begun improving at an accelerated pace. However, there are some recent incidents affecting a few dApps which show the smart contract code is not up to par yet.  Additionally, some random occurrences still raise a lot of questions. None of the following cases has anything to do with issues native to EOS.

#3 Potential EOSBet Concerns

Gambling applications and services have always been popular among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. In the case of EOSBet, it is also the dApp which tends to generate the highest transaction volume as of right now. Some discrepancies have been uncovered in this regard. For some unknown reason, the system has paid out nearly 126,000 EOS to a single user in less than two days. Either this person is very lucky or they have found a bug they can exploit.

Doubling one’s money over numerous bets in a row is very uncommon in the gambling world. Especially when considering no other winners were noted on the EOSBet platform during the times this user was active. However, the dApp developer confirmed there is nothing wrong with the system, nor are any funds stolen. Some people are just born to be lucky.

#2 DEOSGames “Attack”

Any smart contract is subject to bugs, wrong coding, or hidden issues which only become apparent once the project goes live. For DEOSGames, its smart contract code could – or perhaps should – have been audited properly before going live. It did not take long for one user to discover a weakness they could exploit for personal gain.

In the end, this user managed to “obtain” $26,000 worth of EOS due to triggering two dozen jackpot payments in under 60 minutes. A marvelous feat, albeit one has to wonder why the contract has no code to flag such suspicious behavior. Even so, it seems the issue has been rectified, and services have not been affected because of this incident.

#1 Trybe’s Unauthorized Access

The biggest problem for EOS since the launch of its mainnet is courtesy of Trybe. This dApp’s developers were intent on distributing tokens to EOS accounts as a part of an “airdrop” campaign. Although that plan worked just fine, the team also distributed too many tokens to some accounts. Human error is not hard to come by in the cryptocurrency industry, unfortunately.

Rather than asking for the tokens back, Trybe’s team simply decided to access user wallets and retrieve the tokens themselves. This was done without user consent, which does not sit well with the EOS community, for obvious reasons. However, this also highlights how EOS’ ledger technology is mutable. That can be a good thing, in cases like these, but it will undoubtedly spark many new debates over the coming months.

The post 3 Recent Eos DApp Issues Causing Community Concern appeared first on NullTX.

Token gesture: Football token offering from PSG is the next step in blockchain’s entrance into global football

Tracking large movements of value in the cryptocurrency world becomes a lot easier through the Whale Alert feature. This Twitter account scans Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, and ERC20 transactions for large incoming and outgoing transfers pertaining to exchange platforms. It is a valuable addition to the cryptocurrency world, especially for those who enjoy exploring this type of information.

The Whale Alert Concept Explained

Despite the transparent nature of Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s blockchains, sniffing out large transactions in real-time is something no human can do reliably. As such, the Whale Alert Twitter account will do all of the legwork and share the relevant information with the world. It is a simple, yet potentially powerful service which brings more transparency to the cryptocurrency and ERC20 industry.

To reduce the number of tweets the minimal value for BTC and ETH transactions to show up has been further increased to 8.000.000 USD and 2.000.000 USD. Please let us know what you think of the frequency of the tweets!

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 14, 2018

How Does it Work?

Although cryptocurrency transaction monitors are not exactly new, the service provided by Whale Alert is pretty intriguing. It currently focuses on ETH, BTC, USDT, and ERC20 transactions. Given the swelling rumors of trading manipulation pertaining to these markets, any tool providing more transparency will be well-appreciated by the community as a whole.

The monitoring service will tweet out real-time transactions as they occur on their respective networks. If an unusually large transaction is detected, it will try to identify the recipient or sender of the funds. Moreover, it will monitor the exchange for deposit wallets to further link transactions to potential market changes.

Perhaps the most appealing “feature” is how it will monitor Tether network activity. This stablecoin has been the subject of many speculative debates. Whale Alert will monitor the creation of USDT and EURT alike and share real-time details regarding such developments. It is a pretty interesting approach, although it remains to be seen if anything suspicious will pop up over time.

The Road Ahead

Although the Whale Alert service already focuses on some important blockchains and ecosystems, it is evident there will be more demand for services like these. Whale Alert can serve as an important tool for traders on the lookout for large movements of cryptocurrencies.

The post What is Whale Alert? appeared first on NullTX.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) banking ban on cryptocurrencies in India is having less impact than the government anticipated as more exchanges go back to work.

Three exchanges have announced the return of Indian rupee (INR) deposits, contrary to the government ruling in July, which effectively removed INR deposits and made withdrawals illegal. Petitions against the current ruling are up for Supreme Court scrutiny later next week. On 12 September, Koinex announced rupee deposits and withdrawals were now back in operation at their exchange, referring, rather romantically, to the “old times”:

“We are happy to announce the revival of INR in the crypto universe through a new peer-to-peer deposit and withdrawal mechanism for INR transactions… Just like the old times, users will be able to deposit and withdraw funds directly from their INR wallets.”

Another exchange, Coindelta, is back to business as usual too with an equally folksy announcement on their website:

“We have resumed back the INR deposits and withdrawals on Coindelta. Not only this, your old favorite INR markets are back where you can trade with your INR.”

Two other platforms, Koindesk and Giottus, are back too, the latter with a peer-to-peer (P2P) system, allowing its users to withdraw rupees. P2P has become a way that many exchanges have developed for their own homemade way of operating. Exchanges now using a P2P system for accessing and spending their rupees include WazirX, Intashift, and Coind.

WazirX head Nischal Shetty suggested that the exchange was seeing more that one match per minute through its P2P facility, with trading increasing daily, proving that crypto is very much alive and well on the subcontinent.

Rahul Chitale of Instashift said: “Since the last set of RBI-related developments in the past couple of months, we have continued to see strong 20-25% growth in trading volumes month on month over the last 2 quarters of our operation.”

In the meantime, Dabba growths in strength, profiting from the RBI ban. Working via the messaging app Telegram, with money as cash routed through the various channels in the hawala system. The money then passes either officially or unofficially to the foreign account where Bitcoins are transacted. Payment is then made in cash or check and the deal is done: no exchange, no Indian bank.

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