Live CBS Stream
The Bitcoin Entanglement episode of The Big Bang Theory airing tonight 8pm EDT – 1am GMT
The Big Bang Theory Season 11 Episode 9:
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Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver calls Bitcoin a ‘Cripple Coin’
On Nov. 30, back in 2011, Roger Ver made a public bet where he told everyone via youtube, that the cryptocurrency, bitcoin will surpass and outperform gold, and other commodities like silver as well as the dollar by at least 100 times in a couple of years.
So, here we are six years later and it seems that the returns from bitcoin has, indeed surpassed that of the dollar, gold and silver. Holders everywhere since that time are rejoicing.
During the time that he made the bet, bitcoin was only heard of, or, paid attention to by a small community of people. He was sort of an evangelist and strong believer, known in various circles as bitcoin Jesus, he had full faith in bitcoin. But here we are a few short years later and he’s pushing another currency and seems to have different opinions.
He’s making another bet to the world and he’s now betting on bitcoin cash and it’s growth over bitcoin.
He has now switched sides and is pushing the alt coin Bitcoin Cash, which many are referring to as Bitcoin Cash while advising companies like NAGA Group and others who are seeking to launch ICO’s and get into the cryptocurrency space. He’s looking for these new players in the market to adopt Bitcoin Cash so he can grow the relevance of that cryptocurrency.
So, what is Bitcoin Cash?
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a hard fork of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, the fork occurred just a few months ago on August 1, 2017.
Bitcoin Cash calls itself the best money in the world, touting its benefits like bringing sound money to the world and fulfilling the promise of the original bitcoin.
Roger believes that the money should be accepted as long as it is considered good money.
Being able to provide the users of electronic currencies with low fees and reliable confirmations are supposed to be some of the key differentiators.
Roger thinks did state some interesting points like “in the long term the best currency that provides the best value will win” and this is true. At the current moment, new investors are jumping into the market with a potential fear of missing out and want to make sure they realize some gains. “The one that’s used the most will have the largest market cap, the most liquidity, and the biggest user base.”
His bet
He believes that bitcoin cash will rise in price and is betting that bitcoin cash will not be short lived.
On why Bitcoin is a cripple & community pushback
He is pointing to the different lack of scaling and other issues that people in the community are aware of. People are not so happy with the way that he is carrying out his campaign as he has expressed resentment for calling the bitcoin cash bcash and has responded childishly by calling bitcoin a cripple coin.
Yet he is receiving push back from the community, there have been responses from the community, saying things like :
“Roger you can’t complain and lose your temper over people calling BCH by the wrong name and then call BTC ‘cripple coin’. You’re just asking for it if you continue like that. BTC’s limitations speak for themselves, there’s no need for childish rhetoric.”
Many are not a fan of splits and negativity and growing community is not good either and so the pushback is deserved and was expected.
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Circle, the blockchain startup that is a competitor to Coinbase is planning on going forward with their plans for the launch of their new investment sort of products. They are planning on releasing a new app so that consumers will have the ability to demystify their investing experience, they can invest without any issues and confusion. The release of the app will be sometime next year.
The startup has only provided a little bit of information on the matter, they were careful not to provide too many details, perhaps because they don’t want to be on the hook and raise expectations but not be able to deliver?
Some information was submitted via their blog post, found on their website. However, they have been rather secretive with in depth information such as, when exactly they will launch the application and what sort of functionalities and capabilities it will possess.
The startup has previously mentioned that their aim is to provide further tools for investors to make their lives easier when finding currencies to invest in. To address this potential problem in the marketplace they went ahead and acquired Trigger Finance.
So what does Trigger Finance do? Well, the investor would link their broker to a trigger and a trade would automatically be made based on a certain set of conditions set by the individual investor. The simple and secure integration would work with multiple brokerages and will allow one to place their trades from all of their accounts through a variety of great triggers.
The team at trigger calls themselves a mobile oriented investing platform that encourages rules-based investing for every ‘do it’ yourself investor.
The app has won awards in pushing the industry forward for a specific group of savvy investors in managing their portfolios in a more streamlined manner. The app utilizes the concepts of natural language rules and alternative orders. It is able to support execution across all asset classes (stocks, bonds, FX, commodities, indices, mutual funds) and other data sources including Twitter streams global economic events, insider SEC filings, weather and much more.
If Trigger will be one of the core integration’s into the app, that would certainly improve the experience of the investor by a hundredfold, setting certain conditions on when to sell and when to buy and in an increased set of conditions and contexts pulling various data sources. This would certainly provide value to the app that they are going to be providing in a major way.
The team at circle stated
“Be one of the first to try our new digital investment product, coming in 2018,” making note of the negligible commision structure, showing that they would provide support for a variety of coins. The image that they provided shows that they support (XRP, ETH, BTC, BCH & LTC).
On the website you can see more information in which they state
Be one of the first to try our new digital investment product, coming in 2018.
• No commissions
• Custodial account
• Unparalleled liquidity
• Variety of coins
• Secure storage
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Tech Heavyweights entering into the game of cryptocurrency is another signal of the legitimization of the cryptocurrency movement.
The Founder of Techcrunch, Michael Arrington will be yet another whale that chooses to swim in the volatile crypto seas. He announced today at Consensus that he’s in the process of raising $100 million for a new hedge fund that will be purchasing and holding crypto assets, the fund will also make investments in token generation events while also holding some equities and debt instruments.
The entity will be titled Arrington XRP Capital, they state they will be first ones to make certain that all of their limited partners will have to have a certain amount of holdings in XRP. XRP is the fuel for Ripplenet, software created by San Francisco based Ripple. They are also planning on using the XRP currency for all of their distribution of returns as well as their fees.
The most interesting thing about the unveiling of this fund might possibly be that Michael, stressed the importance of how him stepping into this space is closing a previous chapter of his career and opening another one. The previous chapter was the launch and continual growth of TechCrunch, still one of the most prominent tech industry icons running. Within this time frame, he’s also founded CrunchFund, a VC fund that has more than 50 exits.
The founder reportedly mentioned at the Conference :
“In the last several months, I’ve gone from crypto enthusiast to 100 percent crypto. I’ve only been looking at crypto deals. This is what I think I’ll be doing the rest of my career.”
He is a big believer in the fact that cryptocurrency is just taking off and has yet to reach its bubble phase. He doesn’t think that $280+ Billion market is going to pop anytime soon and thinks that there is a larger growth pattern and much more further utilization in terms of value and potential asset classes that could emerge from the market.
“I seriously think that we’ll be in the trillions next year, and that we’ll start to see institutional money,” he stated. “I think next year you’ll see significant gains.”
He will also have other partners like Heather Harde and a few other partners that will serve potential investors with him on this firm’s roster.
How much, who and what does the fund have?
According to reports, the fund has raised about $50 Million in traditional currency and will be seeking to close the funding round by the end of this year.
The fund will be targeting a specific set of investors, those who have high exposure to the world of cryptocurrencies and understand the way that they will move in the markets. He is targeting those with a deep knowledge base. He doesn’t necessarily want to target the fair weather cryptocurrency enthusiasts who were drawn in by the rising prices of the pioneer currency, he wants to work with those who are in it for a longer time horizon.He’s targeting those that are interested in the fundamentals, those who are interested in the value and investing to raise it up, to further its applications and to impact various aspects of the way payments work in the world.
He’s looking to work with those people that are working with Mike Novogratz
Difficulties
It’s certainly not an easy path for these investors, they need to structure the fund in a way that fiat is converted into crytpo, this makes it where the hedge fund can operate and within the bounds of the law. These sorts of funds will have to initially go through through a lengthy approval process to meet regulatory concerns.
XRP is utilized for the reasons of increasing the efficacy of the hedge fund model by minimizing inherent issues.
Ripple Statements
The team over at Ripple are getting an added boost, validating their efforts even further by an external party.
They state
“Arrington’s decision to solely use XRP to power his capital fund further validates that this digital currency provides the best use case for real-time, transparent and secure transactions.
In fact, not only does XRP provide much-needed liquidity for cross-border payments, it’s the fastest, most scalable and stable digital asset on the charts — making it the most appropriate for institutional use.
Even though Ripple does not play an official role in the fund, we are glad to see that Michael Arrington is using his legendary entrepreneurial spirit to create one of the largest digital currency hedge funds using XRP.”
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Mark Cuban on Bitcoin & cryptocurrency
Shark Tank Tv star and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has been having different frames of mind on the topic of Bitcoin.
He calls it a bubble but he wants to invest in it, he sees the prices rising, he sees tell tale signs of what may constitute a bubble in his eyes but still wants to take part in the cryptoboom.
Mark Cuban’s advice to retail Investors
If you want to invest in Bitcoin, be prepared to lose all your money. If you are prepared to lose all your money, take 10% out of your savings and invest into Bitcoin. He calls those who choose to invest in bitcoin as “true adventurers” and interested in throwing “hail mary’s”.
You may benefit wildly, you may not. He thinks that the smarter play may be to simply place your savings into “the cheapest SPX mutual fund you can find” as told to Vanity Fair.
Mark Cuban’s Investment in the space
Cuban has invested in ICO’s like Unikrn a e-sports betting company.
He is planning on investing in a vehicle called 1confirmation, an investment vehicle that is planning on deploying later and is currently in a $20 million funding round. The focus of this company would be on blockchain based companies.
The fund will have blockchain heavyweights like Bajali S. Srinivasan and the founder of the programming language Javascript as technical advisors (not a bad choice for entering into the virtual world). The financial vehicle is also planning on partnering with the venture capital firm Runa Capital as one of the capital providers.
Cuban has said that he has always looked at the possibilities of blockchain and what can be achieved with this technology being an underlying foundation and platform for boosting the viability of great applications and building them in a better manner. He’s hoping that it would be possible to find these solutions and applications with all the money that has been invested in it.
One of the principals from Runa Capital (Nick Tomaino) was involved as an employee of the wildly popular Coinbase and as such is a thought leader in the industry, he currently writes on his blog (The Control) to inform people about his thoughts on developments in the space. The team is thinking that one of the key differences in their investment fund is that they are not going to be investing in companies when they go for their Initial Coin Offering. They are planning on playing the game a little differently. Their idea is back strong foundational companies with a good these before they go for their token generation events. This way they are not buying the tokens of the company before the ICO, they are purchasing a stake in the venture as per current legal structures which makes things more streamlined. They are seeking to do this and it somewhat of a contrarian move as many hedge funds are rising and taking stakes in companies via their tokens when they deploy them after their ICO’s.
1confirmation is planning on providing investments that range from $100,000 to about $500,000 and will be providing guidance and assistance throughout the development of the product and company. By doing this they have more control and are able to see progress per step.
When the companies are then ready to launch to the world via an ICO, the venture fund will be able to receive tokens at solid discount.
Clearly he sees opportunity in the crypto space but he’s approaching it with great caution.
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In 2013, Mt.Gox was the biggest Bitcoin exchange on the planet. The price of Bitcoin was soaring, and in December 2013, Mt.Gox declared bankrupcy and closed the exchange, resulting in 850,000 of it’s customers Bitcoin being lost.
The news caused a huge crash in the Bitcoin price, causing many to report that Bitcoin had died and failed. The all time high price at the time was around $500 and crashed down to around $200 following the closure of Mt.Gox.
The story is famous in the Bitcoin world, and is the perfect example of the risks of storing Bitcoin on an online exchange.
What was the value of these bitcoins that were lost? Well, the price has increased significantly since the loss and so, they would now be worth at least $8.25bln. Imagine how frustrated the user base must be. For many users, the amount they would now be worth could have been truly life changing.
Well, in 2014, the government of Japan conducted an investigation into the matter, by forming their own task force, a trustee dive deep into the details of the matter of Mt.Gox while the company sought bankruptcy.
The CEO of Mt. Gox Mark Karpeles was one of those in the company who was investigated for his potential wrongdoings in the matter. Those who were tasked to investigate him did so and made their conclusions. They first made certain to state to the Mt. Gox leaders that it was of the utmost importance for them to promise to give back the 202,000 bitcoins that were recovered.
Yet, in an interesting turn of events, it seems that the users will be credited, but they will only be credited with the Japanese yen value of the bitcoins as they were in the year of 2013, referencing the pricing and rates that were present in that time frame. That means that if they held whole bitcoins, they might just be able to receive satoshis or portions of a bitcoin in today’s rates.
The users might be 30 times more infuriated to find this out, as the price of the currency increased at least that many times since that timeframe. These people who are owed the money are still seeking to gain what is rightfully theirs and are not too happy with the way that the bankruptcy judgements are playing out. As such, they are seeking to investigate their various options for legal recourse in the matter and trying to figure out how to make the company and its leaders cough up the the rest of crypto.
To further incite fury, the former CEO of Mt. Gox has announced ICO plans.
He published a blog post recently that stated what was happening with the case and addressed full the the concerns of those creditors who want the btc at today’s rates. He’s stated that he will be doling out what is legally deemed as correct and goes rather in depth on the matter.
He stated
“Now, far from being boring, this bankruptcy is setting a new kind of precedent. Indeed, the assets held by MtGox when it entered liquidation bankruptcy included some 202,000 BTC, which now have a worth at today’s rate much higher than the sum of all non-erroneous claims filed against MtGox.
Normally this shouldn’t be an issue. Bankruptcy repays all creditors in full, and we’re done. In this specific case, however, many of the claims are based on Bitcoin value held by MtGox customers at the time the bankruptcy started, and while for most the claimed amount would cover all money spent on purchasing said bitcoins (in some case it would add a hefty bonus), most Bitcoin creditors assert capital gains from said bitcoins should be paid to them.”
He went further on about how in many bankruptcy cases, capital gains would usually not allow covering all claims, but this is a special case and the current estimated value of the assets are much higher than the accepted liabilities.
He then floated the idea of bring Mt Gox back but said that there is a price tag for it of $245 million to solve all the issues in the past and restart. He said that there would be two ways to accomplish this, one by restructuring the company and through an ICO. He updated his post later to let people know that the ICO would have many legal hurdles and so would not be able to be accomplished?
Are you interested in buying Mt. Gox?
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It’s been a whirlwind of a day for Bitcoin. The price passed the monumental $10,000 mark earlier today for the first time, rising as high as $11,500!
Now the price has taken a plunge back below $10,000, with the current price sitting at $9,500 according to Coinmarketcap
That’s a 17% dip in price in just 6 hours from the all time high of $11,500
Major exchanges such as Coinbase, Gdax and Kraken to name just a few have gone offline.
Coinbase (also owners of Gdax) took to Twitter earlier in the day:
“We are experiencing all time high traffic at the moment – 8x the peak we saw in June”
The servers have been running slowly all day. It seems since passing the $10,000 mark, many new investors may have become interest in Bitcoin as a store of value, leading to huge numbers of people flocking to buy.
Blockfolio is a popular app used for keeping track of cryptocurrency portfolios, and their servers have also been running slow today.
Despite the dip, this is of course good news for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. It means many more people are becoming interested and investing.
Hopefully these exchanges and services can resolve the problems quickly and resume trading as soon as possible.
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Bitcoin Price Hits $10,000
A monumental milestone today for Bitcoin as the market price hits $10,000 (£7511) !
The $10,000 mark is the most significant hurdle to date for Bitcoin. ‘Experts’ and speculators have been questioning how long it would take to the $10k mark, but not many people quite expected it to be this soon.
The market cap is now more than $165 Billion, making the total value of Bitcoin worth more than Boeing,
The total market cap of all cryptocurrencies is now more than $300 Billion, collectively making them worth more than some of the richest companies on the planet including Wal-Mart, Nestle & Visa!
JP Morgan’s market cap is around $340 Billion and cryptocurrencies are quickly catching up!
What’s astonishing however is the fact that at the start of 2017, the total crypto market cap was just $17.68 Billion!
That’s an 833% rise in just 11 months! If things continue at this rate, and there’s no sign of things slowing, by November 2018 the total market cap will be more than $2.7 Trillion!
If Bitcoin continues rising at the rate it has in 2017, it’s market cap would be around $1.8 Trillion, more than the richest company in the world, Apple.
Now I’m not saying this will happen, but if Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies continue to increase at the current rate, the effect on the global economy will be like that of nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Fiat currencies will be worthless. This has the very real potential of causing a global financial melt down before the end of 2018. Get ready people because the world may be about to get very messy!
Why is Bitcoin going up so fast?
Bitcoin is being bought at an ever increasing rate. Most are buying it to be used as a store of value. Because the price is increasing, people are buying hoping to increase the value of their funds. As more people buy, the price increases even more, thus attracting more and more buyers.
It’s a snowball effect on a gigantic scale. The more the price goes up, the more buyers are attracted and the cycle continues.
It’s safe to say that it’s impossible to accurately predict where the Bitcoin price could get to by the end of 2018. We’re seeing now a tremendous amount more media coverage on the subject, celebrities and public figures speaking out and alerting the public to the scale in which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could become.
One of the biggest factors for the increase in Bitcoin price is word of mouth. With so many people profiting from Bitcoin, it’s easy to see why cryptocurrencies are taking off at such a rapid pace.
Aside from these, CME Group’s announcement to begin their Bitcoin futures market before the end of 2017 may have had a large impact on the price increasing so fast. Other large financial institutions are making moves toward the cryptocurrency, even JP Morgan who’s CEO famously called Bitcoin a fraud just months ago are considering offering CME’s Bitcoin future markets to their clients.
World famous poker star Dan Bilzerian and other famous celebrities such as Bjork are fans and investors of cryptocurrencies. With millions of fans, their impact is sure to be huge!
With even more things favourable to Bitcoin due to happen before the end of the year such as The Big Bang Theory’s Bitcoin episode and when CME actually begin selling their futures market, anything can happen!
Watch The Big Bang Theory Bitcoin Promo Video
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Vitalik Buterin Lays Out 3-5 Year Roadmap For Ethereum
“The ethereum killer is ethereum, the ethereum of China is ethereum, the ethereum of Taiwan is ethereum… 2.0.” – The introduction statement of Vitalik Buterin when presenting at Beyond Block in Tapei.
Vitalik Buterin appeared in Taipei Taiwan for a conference where he let people know about what he was thinking about for the years to come. His talk focused primarily on the issues that many believe are troubling ethereum, safety, scalability and privacy. The founder made sure to note that the privacy issue was about seventy-five percent solved. He made an indirect note letting people know where his thoughts were by wearing a Byzantium T-shirt highlighting a ethereum hardfork.
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin also made certain to lay out the much awaited plans for the upcoming events in the future. The future plans focused on the improvements that would be made to the underlying technology of the blockchain.
His opening statement was deliberate and bold, it addressed the concerns that people with the various things that are happening in the Ethereum space such as the replacements that are popping up and have popped in the past few months. Many believe that are stealing value from the main and pioneer Ethereum system.
His statement
“The Ethereum killer is Ethereum, the Ethereum of China is Ethereum, the Ethereum of Taiwan is Ethereum… 2.0.”
This was a very smart and much needed statement, this provided the markets with what they needed to hear and may be one of the reasons it experienced a spike over the weekend, as interesting news from him was expected. As we’ve evidenced with bitcoin the market reacts in different ways to hard forks and splits within the system.
The talk focused in on the four segments of improvement that would be made to the ETH platform, these consisted of privacy, consensus safety, smart contract safety and scalability. Vitalik sees that there is a solution for each of these through, some that the community may not like, such as present and potential future hard forks.
The team over at Byzantium are bringing to market some newly minted crypto algorithms like zero-knowledge proofs and ring signatures which may provide coders with the ability to access tools that can create solutions to the problems that these privacy issues bring
Vitalik stated that the privacy problems are about seventy five percent of the way done from the base layer, the latter portion that is remaining will be at a protocol level. The idea is to be able to hide a transaction and give it selective anonymity. The individual participating in the transaction would be able to present the details of the transaction to who they wish at their own discretion.
The next topic of focus was that of the Casper update. The idea of this was to address the different mentions and comments surrounding consensus safety issues.
Afterwards they are also planning on deploying a Viper update that is supposed to exclusively pointed at addressing the matters with smart contract safety.
Scalability, an ever pressing concern in the community is still being worked on, as this is one of the toughest aspects of the system to account for, they have to find out ways to make changes that will allow for scalability without causing any potential issues to the current dynamics of the system. It seems that there must be a compromise to achieve scalability. But it is necessary for the aspects of security, decentralization and scalability to work together in one accord. If one wants to improve scalability, they might have do so at the cost of the crucial nature of decentralization. This and other factors cause the aspect of scalability to be a difficult problem to solve. But they are addressing it and seeking to make sure they are working on it in a holistic manner, where none of the aspects of the system have to be minimized, they can all work in harmony to create the expected system (scalability, decentralization and security). Eventually, an on chain, second layer solution should account for and provide a holistic solution.
He went on further about scalability, stating that the goal is to scale on-chain to thousands of transactions without masternodes, consortium nodes, or any other centralizing aspects through a function called sharding. Sharding allows for side chains where protocol changes can be upgraded while keeping the primary chain complete.
All of these changes are to take place incrementally over the course of three to five years.
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OPSkins is a company and website that allows you to buy and sell steam marketplace skins and items on the world’s largest skin market.
This world’s largest centralized marketplace for trading video game virtual items (virtual game assets), is going to be shifting toward a blockchain and decentralized approach.
They are rolling out their latest innovation, WAX. Their new service or offering, dubbed the Worldwide Asset eXchange, (WAX), which will be a decentralized platform for virtual exchanges, to empower all virtual item market participants.
The idea would be to connect both buying and selling agents and accounting for item escrow, fiduciaries, appraisers, affiliates and buyers & sellers to exchange merchandise, apportion fees and settle transactions quickly and securely.
The Platform
The Worldwide Asset eXchange platform would enable a community of over 400+ million online video gamers to host their own secure virtual item exchanges on the blockchain, allowing for higher frequency, transparent transactions at extremely low costs. WAX is designed to give gamers their own exchanges, similar to OPSkins, without investment in hardware, security infrastructure or payment processing.
The CEO of OPSkins stated
“The current virtual item trading industry is fragmented across hundreds of mostly regional marketplaces, creating significant supply and demand imbalances”. “WAX solves this issue by creating a global virtual item platform accessible to anyone, providing a complete catalog of all assets available for sale in real time. Such a repository, when coupled with a reliable and low cost settlement network, vastly improves price discovery, market liquidity and growth.”
WAX is sort of a culmination of the vast knowledge and experience of the founders of the experience of the OPskins founding team. The founders have over 20+ years of billions of transactions of virtual asset sale experience and they have utilized this knowledge to create a smart token that would allow for highly secure and automated transactions. The WAX platform enables for global groups of buyers and sellers to minimize and eliminate the many risks associated with the traditional consignment-based economic model that is present today.
The tokens that WAX issues will serve as a store of value for the acquisition of in game assets and as smart contracts. The smart contracts will allow for the ensuring of secure and efficient buying, selling and trading of virtual assets, improving the overall user experience for all involved.
Skins “decorations for virtual guns, knives and more” are important to many gamers and are increasing in demand within popular games such as Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, many gamers’ go to great lengths to comparison shop and can spend over a $80,000 – $100,000 on the purchase of high end skins.
The company is in the process of raising about $41+ million by selling its WAX tokens, (as noted above). The ICO is set to close shortly and will be finalized this month.
Parties in the platform will use WAX to transact on the platform. The company seeks to make the process hunting for skins simple, convenient and more open. If the company can effectively provide the right conditions, users will be able to see the real prices of items as determined by the marketplace and don’t have to guess and spend time shopping.
Worldwide Asset eXchange (WAX) is a new company created by the founders of OPSkins to expand asset trading for in-game items. WAX uses blockchain technology to empower hundreds of millions of multiplayer online video gamers to collect and trade in-game virtual assets conveniently and securely.
Created in 2015, OPSkins is the global marketplace leader for video game virtual assets. The company facilitates over 100 million purchases annually from millions of customers in 95 countries.
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Zurich: Darico, the asset-backed cryptocurrency that’s been designed to provide aspiring investors with easy-access to crypto investment, is set to press the “Go” button on its pre-ICO, at midnight, 30th November.
Following months of development, the Darico team is ready to start raising the funds that will be used to buy the gold, Bitcoin and Ether with which the currency is backed.
A serious asset, a simple proposition
In a crypto environment that too often uses complexity as a selling point, Darico prides itself on its simple proposition. It’s a coin backed by 55% Bitcoin and 10% Ether in order to gain access to returns from the cryptocurrency boom but which is also hedged with 35% gold, so it can ride the downtimes more smoothly than other investment coins.
The result is a coin designed specifically to give investors safer and easier access to crypto investment.
“Cryptocurrencies are already an important part of the investment ecosystem but even now, eight years after the first Bitcoins were mined, most people don’t know how to get involved,” said Mojtaba Asadian, Founder and CEO of Darico.
“The cryptocurrency markets are characterized by their volatility, illiquidity and the correlations in value between currencies. We’ve designed Darico as a crypto asset that avoids these problems because gold, which for centuries has been used as a physical reserve asset, gives Darico holders exposure to the conventional asset markets.”
Safe haven innovation
Launching on 30th November, buyers of Darico coins will also receive access to auto-mining Genesis accounts that will continue to emit new Darico coins on a pre-scheduled basis for the next 18 years.
“The Genesis accounts are a brilliant innovation that ensure a steady supply of Darico for the next 18 years. By taking part in the ICO, buyers of Darico coins will receive a Genesis account that guarantees their holdings will continue to grow on a regular basis.”
As a cryptocurrency, Darico can be bought or sold by anyone operating in a jurisdiction where cryptocurrencies are not prohibited, so holders are expected to range from financial institutions to retail investors by way of sophisticated high net worth investors and family offices looking to diversify their investment portfolios.
“Darico represents an important step forward for cryptocurrency investment,” said Mojtaba Asadian, Founder of Darico.
“It really does open the door to retail investors who have wanted to gain exposure to the crypto markets but have either not had the technical expertise to know how to access them or have found the volatility and illiquidity off-putting.”
“Darico is an easy-to-understand asset that provides a straightforward pathway into cryptocurrency investment, while also offering the protection of gold, the best known safe haven asset.”
The Darico pre-ICO begins at midnight on November 30th. More information and updates can be found at darico.io
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Ever since Bitcoin grew in popularity, people have wondered about the creators of the cryptocurrency, did Elon Musk create Bitcoin?
Known only by the synonym Satoshi Nakamoto, nobody knows the real identity of it’s creator(s).
They asked questions like, what was his motive, who is he, where is he, why is he quiet, why have we barely heard from him?
A few of these questions have been answered by Satoshi, yet, other questions linger, his identity remains a secret and speculation continues.
Some jokesters have stepped forward and have stated that they were the founder but they have been proven to not be the founder through various checks by many parties.
An example of this would have been Craig Wright, the founder of NChain. Wright claimed to be the founder at a Future of Bitcoin Conference and was immediately met with pushback by some members of the community like Wladimir van Der Laan. Wladimir was able to provide a check on this statement by being one of the of people who maintains the Bitcoin Core.
According to the developer, Sergio Lerner, Satoshi is said to have about 1 million in bitcoin. That much bitcoin means he is worth in excess of 9,000,000,000, that is, indeed, a lot of zeros.
The latest to receive this speculative honor is none other than billionaire extraordinaire, Elon Musk.
Elon Musk, History
Elon Musk has spoken out in the past about the banking/financial system and is one of the founders of PayPal, (a worldwide online payments system that supports online money transfers while serving as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders).
This would provide Musk with some sort of authority on the financial system and might have given him a leg up in being able to create a financial system like Bitcoin.
Check out his long term vision on Paypal, money, databases and Bitcoin.
Elon Musk has since then moved on to energy and Space in his investments and work in Tesla, SpaceX and solarcity.
Elon’s motive behind all of his businesses has been the impact they would have on the future of the world. Take Tesla for example, using renewable energy rather than our finite oil reserves, a step toward a more sustainable future. SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to provide a new planet for human beings to live on.
Everything he does is centred around creating a better future on Earth.
Now, a former intern at SpaceX, Sahil Gupta, believes that Elon Musk created Bitcoin!.
Did Elon Musk Create Bitcoin ?
He starts out his thoughts by providing three bold statements, two of which are more plausible.
His premise lies in these three principles, Elon has the expertise in finance and economics realm, understanding the various components of banking and money exchange through his tenure at Paypal. He then was a big proponent of C++, which is what the source code of bitcoin was written in. Lastly, Elon is cross disciplinary innovator as proven with his path from finance (Paypal) to energy (Tesla, SolarCity) to space(SpaceX).
Sahil states
“Satoshi is probably Elon
Is Elon capable of inventing Bitcoin? Probably.
The 2008 Bitcoin paper was written by someone with a deep understanding of economics and cryptography. Elon has a background in econ and wrote production-level internet software for Zip2 and X.com / Paypal.
Bitcoin’s source code was written by someone with a mastery of C++. Elon seems to have a firm grasp of C++, insisting it be used at X.com and at SpaceX.
Experience aside, Elon is a self-taught polymath. He’s repeatedly innovated across fields by reading books on a subject and applying the knowledge. It’s how he built rockets, invented the Hyperloop (which he released to the world as a paper), and could have invented Bitcoin.”
We’re waiting on Elon to confirm or deny this statement, but if he is Satoshi, it’s likely that he’ll just keep innovating and living.
The post Elon Musk, the Creator of Bitcoin? SpaceX Employee Thinks So appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.
Globitex was founded in 2011 and serves as a professional Bitcoin marketplace, filling the need for an institutional grade exchange platform with advanced IT solutions, ideal for both individual and institutional Bitcoin market participants.
The exchange was founded by the prior executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, Jon Matonis. The company has just announced that its parent company, Globitex holding, has received an electronic money institution (EMI) license from the bank of Lithuania. They have been granted legal authority in the EU to provide payment services and e-money issuances in the European Union.
The reception of the license allows Globitex to expand its reach by merging with the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) via the central bank of Lithuania.
This allows for the further ability of the company to directly clear euro payments as opposed to the current structure of routing them through commercial banks. The license also gives them the ability to open accounts for new clients as freely as current banks, which may provide for further accessibility.
The team over at Globitex states with this development they can deal with global EURO fiat payments in a much more simple and efficient manner. This event also will provide for a higher level of legitimisation for the cryptocurrency space in general.
A key point from this event is that it shows a large step toward mass adoption of Bitcoin as a unit of account suitable for global trade, with no geographic, political or monetary restrictions.
Globitex will then be able to implement a process for more parties like producers, speculators and trading firms to buy exchange listed products for bitcoin and to hedge their bets in bitcoin with various aspects of derivatives trading.
Liza Aizupiete, a Managing Director of Globitex states
“Globitex is looking to set new cryptocurrency trading standards not only technologically, or by commodities linked product offering, but especially in Globitex’s legal setup, ensuring safe passage to the digital age.”
Bitcoin provides significant advantages to the settlement of global transactions via its speed and minimal cost when compared with current money transfer systems but order-book depth and liquidity simply can’t support large trades at the current moment. This means that bitcoin will not currently be able to serve as a currency for international trade settlement throughout the world’s financial markets.
Globitex wants to provide a solution for this issue by greatly expanding bitcoin trading volumes and enabling bitcoin’s use across the various lines of money and commodity markets, allowing for cash, shares, bonds, gold, crude oil, agriculture and silver to be priced directly in bitcoin.
“In order to facilitate the use of Bitcoin as an industrial scale medium of exchange as well as to allow for its use in global trade, we propose taking the existing Globitex exchange infrastructure and scaling it up into an exchange that has global spot and derivatives exchange capabilities, where standardised instruments in major commodities are listed with physical delivery, and where Bitcoin is used as the underlying currency.”
The company is also holding a token sale, using the underlying ethereum blockchain for its GBX utility token to fund its ambitious project.
The team has provided a simple video to explain their project here.
Globitex team has created a professional Bitcoin marketplace to fill the need for institutional grade exchange platform with advanced IT solutions, suitable for both individual and institutional Bitcoin market participants.
Our purpose is to advance the Bitcoin industry globally, increase Bitcoin trading liquidity and allow professional traders to participate via API (FIX & RESTful) interface for trading and payments.
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Swisquote Group, who states that they are the leading provider of trading services’, have recently provided a further offering. This time they are seeking to foray further into the crypto space by by providing an “actively managed bitcoin certificate” (powered by its machine learning algorithm) to it’s consumers. The exchange-traded product (ETP) is to be listed on the largest stock exchange in Switzerland, the Six Swiss Exchange.
The Swissquote is already in the process of offering a place to buy and sell bitcoin, they offer a service where one can buy and sell BTC in USD and EUR.
They state that they have low transaction fees per volume category of trade and that they provide investors with the ability to buy and sell in a simple, secure and fast manner. Their offering does not include a wallet, only a way to buy and sell the cryptocurrency.
The new service they will be offering (the Bitcoin ETP), will allow consumers to protect themselves against the volatility of Bitcoin, a hurdle faced by many institutional investors. The new financial instrument will allow for these investors to enter the market and invest, being exposed to the upside while complying with the regulations. At the current moment, regulations prevent these investors from directly investing in the currency.
This new product, that the group is calling a certificate, aims to increase the growth of capital through a hands on and active management approach. The approach will be comprised of the transfer of holdings between cash and Bitcoin.
The firm believes that all should be able to gain and derive benefit from the “boom in digital currencies” and that is why they are deploying their dynamically managed Bitcoin certificate.
They state that the differences are in the reduction of volatility. They are utilizing the new technology and processes of algorithms and machine learning to develop a quantitatively based approach to their investing. The system is supposed to anticipate the bitcoin price trends and move in accordance with those trends. If the price of bitcoin is swinging up, they will over-weight it as necessary, if its trending downwards, it will be under-weighted. A significant portion of their portfolio will be allocated toward Bitcoin.
They state “with the likelihood of a downturn rising, the cash position is increased to up to 40%, thereby reducing volatility. If prices are expected to rise, up to 100% of the certificate is invested in Bitcoin.”
Swissquote claim another benefit, is that they will be the first one on the market with the first listed crypto-strategy and will be able to protect investors and provide with them with a better way to limit their exposure to risk through investing in the certificate.
The last significant feature would be the simple and secure access by consumers to their Bitcoins. The Group promises that investors do not have to worry about managing their public or private access keys, their electronic wallet.They also don’t have to worry about hacking.
Need to Knows
Time Frame :The certificate has a 3 Year Term
Denomination :Bitcoin priced in USD as the underlying asset.
Symbol:SQX/BTQ
Initial Trading Period:November 23, 2017
Closing Trading Period: November 11, 2020
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Bitcoin in the Philippines
The Government of the Philippines has been taking a bullish stance on bitcoin as they have made many movements to embrace and foster the use of the currency.
Earlier this year Bankgko Sentral ng Pilipinas,BSP, started to officially regulate local bitcoin exchanges. As they have seen that people are active in the virtual currency space and enterprises ((Coins.ph, BuyBitcoin.ph and Rebit.ph) have popped up to meet the filipino consumer’s appetite for the virtual currencies.
The country of the Philippines possesses some of Asia’s most advanced and holistic BTC platforms which allows Filipino users to settle any currency related bills, payments and transfers with bitcoin.
In response, BSP, is regulating the Philippine Bitcoin Exchanges as remittance companies and they are recognizing BTC as legal and proper payment method.
Earlier this year, BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla announced the plans of the Philippine Central Bank to issue an in depth regulatory framework for Bitcoin users, exchanges and companies. The Deputy Governor emphasized the rapid growth of Bitcoin within the country, making of the monthly Bitcoin volumes increases from $1 mln to $6 mln a month over the span of a year.
The government quickly followed up on their promise to provide regulatory guidance on Bitcoin and the Central Bank of the Philippines released BSP Circular No.944 entitled “Guidelines for Virtual Currency (VC) Exchanges”.
The document clarified the nature of bitcoin, and stated that it won’t be classified a s legal currency because it wasn’t issued by the central bank. But since they saw numerous benefits to using the currency in terms of payment and remittance, the central bank will allow for the flows of the currency with moderate regulation of the bitcoin providers, classifying them as remittance companies.
They then formalized the BTC facilitators and made certain that the companies would be in compliance with Anti- Money Launder (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) policies.
Further Expansion
Now, the regulators are seeking to provide further clarity on the expanded use cases of bitcoin and its network. In a press conference this week, the country’s equivalents of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) leader Emilio Aquino presented their stance and future plans on expansion.
They are looking at whether or not they should be adopting the virtual currencies as securities which would officially take them to another level in regards to regulatory acceptance. When the move occurs, cryptocurrencies would be integrated in the regulatory code.
The commissioner (Aquino) stated
“The direction is for us to consider this so-called virtual currencies offerings as possible securities in which case we will apply the Securities Regulation Code. The heightened frenzy and increasing popularity surrounding initial coin offerings has pushed authorities to lay down new rules to protect consumers.
We have seen particularly in the social media sites that there are offers of initial coin offerings, most popular of which, of course [are] bitcoin and Ethereum…but [there are] new ones which may be considered as securities.”
Their bank and their regulators have said that they are taking an open minded approach while studying what other regulators in the US, Malaysia and other countries are doing.
The Use Case
The primary and approved use cases are for the increasing need for improved remittance services from Filipinos working overseas. The government has endorsed at least six companies in the space and are looking to approve more companies who will be providing these services.
The reason why the people of the Philippines are preferring this to traditional services like Western Union and others is because the transactions are cost effective and less time consuming.
Final Thoughts
Some governments are seeing the interest from their people and taking a market based approach to how they deal with Bitcoin. The primary thought process is , if there is significant demand, then regulate moderately and let the space progress.
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Ripple has been on fire lately, not necessarily in terms of price when compared to Bitcoin or others, but in terms of action. Many new developments, partnerships and updates have been announced recently.
Since the start of this month, we’ve seen a flurry of activity from the team, many large financial institutions and banks have joined ripple. Their price jumped when there was an announcement that they would be working with AMEX and Santander on payments as well as their interesting meetings with the central banks. At the time of the AMEX announcement, ripple did see it’s prices shoot up at least 24% in an hour, at a certain point. Investors were simply shocked that Ripple had tied in with such a giant in the financial sphere.
Chartered Bank & Axis Connection – Ripple News
The company continues it’s growth with the addition of an international payments channel between Standard Chartered Bank and Axis Bank India. This real-time settlement network is very similar to the arrangement that they have between AMEX and Santander UK operations. The ends are the same, cost reduction and an increase in the speed of transactions.
The banks are seeking to connect corporates between Singapore and India – with Standard Chartered’s Straight2Bank system. According to Standard Charter’s release, the platform will allow users to see all fees up front, pre-validate transactions and thereby more quickly settle them. The banks will not be using XRP to conduct the facilitation just the other aspects of the Ripple platform.
An interesting note is that this was one of the backers of Ripple in being a part of it’s $55 million Series B round that took place in 2016.
Gautam Jain, the managing director and global head of client access for Standard Chartered, stated that:
“The successful launch of our commercial cross-border payment service marks a significant milestone in the financial industry’s progress in applying distributed ledger technology for corporates.”
Ripple for their part, stated:
“These three major banks use Ripple’s leading enterprise-blockchain solution to power real-time, on-demand corporate payments from Standard Chartered to Axis Bank, and retail remittance payments from RAKBANK to Axis Bank beneficiaries. Now, live payments are completed in just minutes — with the certainty of settlement.”
Ron Will Addition
Ripple will also be adding Ron Will as their Chief Financial Officer, Ron brings with him about 30 years of experience in the in investment banking industry and has been focusing his time on scaling startups.
Ron has worked at Mainsail Partners as a CFO and Operating Partner, TubeMogul as a CFO, at BrightRoll as CFO and at Yahoo! as a treasurer.
He remarked that he is looking forward to the creative ways Ripple can use the XRP coin to accelerate RippleNet. He knows that since this is the only “enterprise-grade digital asset that’s catered for institutional use” , it gives them an edge and a differentiation.
I’m looking forward to the creative ways Ripple can use XRP to accelerate RippleNet. The fact that it’s the only enterprise-grade digital asset that’s best suited for institutional use, makes it a differentiation in the market.
Will has a notable resume as he’s served with various companies working on many acquisitions, has been with a treasury group through the downturn of 2008 and has built out much of the foreign exchange hedging structure.
HUOBI & ZB.COM
The CEO of Ripple excitedly announced on twitter ‘Holiday, schmoliday! Team Ripple is absolutely committed to building XRP liquidity – and in that context. @HUOBI_Pro (3rd largest exchange in China) is listing XRP / BTC tomorrow !”
Now, they have just received support from a prominent Chinese Crypto exchange ZB.Com, recently opened on November 1st.
The announcement states that XRP/USD and XRP/BTC transactions are going to start from 12:00 AM from November 21ST.
The exchange explicitly states that they will not deal in any of the Chinese currencies because of RMB ban of the last month.
Final Thoughts:
These updates are important because it shows that Ripple is aggressively and strategically working to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together as they build for the long term.
They continuously add partners and provide the infrastructure for more banks and cross border payments.
They are making the right decisions when it comes to team and what they can bring from a strategic as well as an execution standpoint.
Lastly, they are building on the side of XRP, providing for more liquidity with the further listings.
The post Ripple Update: News, Developments & Announcements: Standard Chartered, Axis, ZB.Com, Ron Will, Huobi appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.
Ethereum Movements
The price of Ethereum has hit a new high at above $450 threshold, with current price being at $460, up around 40% in the past 7 days.
The ETH price been sideways lately, and has taken a few hits with events like the Parity wallet attack which occurred earlier this month. This and other situations may have had something to do with relatively flat investor interest in the platform.
There has been speculation over whether or not the Ethereum price has been artificially manipulated to staying low recently in a potential attempt to build momentum and demand. There are now more Ethereum transactions than there are from all other cryptocurrencies combined, so there’s certainly no shortage of demand.
Ethereum has also seen other positive news with interesting events like the historically significant regulated ETH denominated bond that was deployed recently by Nivaura with the support of JP Morgan, Moody’s and others.
Following this bond, we’re also seeing that Ethereum is perfectly poised to enter the derivatives market.
According to Smart Brief “An exchange dubbed “Virtuoso”, co-founded by Sunil Hirani, plans to offer ether derivatives, sources say, in the wake of a decision by CME Group and Cboe Global Markets to launch bitcoin futures.
Virtuoso is said to be working in line with the regulatory framework set by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and will be catered to institutional investors and corporations. These corporations and institutional investors will have a decent amount of exposure to ethers’ price fluctuations.
Virtuoso is supposed to be deploying these derivatives contracts by the first or second quarter of next year, and afterwards it will branch off into providing swaps, forwards and other sorts of contracts.
We’re seeing sort of a domino effect in the market space when it comes to cryptocurrency, where one large financial player like CME or other’s pledge their entrance into the market others also follow suit to stay competitive.
Ethereum, has always positioned itself differently than bitcoin and has never stated that it was to serve a specific purpose, as Vitalik Buterin (founder of ETH) stated, ethereum is supposed to be utilized in various manners, it may be customized to the needs of consumers by the consumers themselves. There is enough flexibility in the platform to support various use cases, they haven’t positioned themselves as serving one purpose and therefore contain different functionalities which has contributed it’s growth in use by business, ICO’s and more. Ethereum is said to have a proper foundation and many businesses see this and have chosen to grow with the platform.
Crypto Market & BCH
As of this current writing, the overall size of the crypto market has surpassed $250 billion, at an increased value than before.
It seems that there is also a rise in the price of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash or BCH, in its jump on the dollar, increasing higher than 30% against the USD to $1,588.10.
For BCH the jump comes from the acceptance of BCH by more virtual exchanges like Bitstamp, who recently stated that they would integrating Bitcoin Cash into it’s platform due to increasing demand.
Another provider that has expressed it’s intent to support the coin has also been Bitwalla. Showing that there is interest from investors and an increasing appetite by consumers.
Monero & Other Alts
We are also seeing that Monero, Dash, Ripple and others have seen their prices go up as well. For projects like Dash and Ripple, their teams have made movements and have conducted interesting activities that would justify the push in pricing.
The post Finally, Ethereum Passes ATH Set in June! A Long Time Coming! $460 appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.
Dan on BTC Growth
Dan Bilzerian, king of Instagram and professional poker player, has seen significant gains in his bitcoin investment and he’s told his 23 million social media followers all about it.
Dan, who is known for his many wild antics and hobnobbing with people like Floyd Mayweather and others, stated in may that he purchased a significant amount of BTC earlier in may and it’s crazy to see how its going up.
Since his announcement of his purchase in the month of May, we’ve seen that the price of bitcoin has gone up from around $2,300 to it’s current hovering around $8,200. If we were to extrapolate the value of the Bitcoin Cash (BCH), that would have been airdropped (equivalent to how much BTC he owned or how much he received) and if he hasn’t sold those either, he would have seen a double jump in his increases with bitcoin cash also sort making leaps as the months go by. BCH is now sitting at $1500.
Dan stated :
“I bought a sh**load of Bitcoin today. It’s so crazy watching that shit f***ing go up, too, it’s like sweating like I made a bet on the Super Bowl or something.”
He also commented recently “damn all my crypto is killing it,” making it seem as if he has much more holdings than just in BTC.
Long Term Growth & Inherent Stability
Many investors may not be aware of the inherent value of bitcoin and may simply be speculating, looking to gain a quick buck from the cryptoworld and then sell at a level where they feel they can’t take any more risk.
They may not believe in the potential for the crypto world to rise in strength in comparison to fiat currencies and gold, these investors may have sold when they reached a 50% or 75% return on their investment.
These are the sort of investors that tremble when the wild swings happen, like the sort that happened just recently with the price of BCH flying to $2,900 while BTC plummeted to $5,600. These sort of investors can be justified in their own right, they may wonder, what is going on?! And may not be in the mood for a roller coaster and simply have a short term goal they want to meet. Whatever the reason, it does take quite a bit of stomach to reign in the crypto bull but some may not have the appetite for it.
Then, there are those who are holding for the long term, those like Dan, who seem to have a diversified portfolio and riding the market out through it’s dips and its highs, setting a long term target.
These investors are doubling down on crypto for various reasons, they may have surrounded themselves with people who know what they are talking about or maybe they themselves have done their due diligence on the market. They know that they are not playing in a market that’s similar to penny stocks, they believe that bitcoin is, to a certain extent anti-fragile and will be a long term store of value.
Bitcoin and crypto may be about the bear case for Fiat currencies
Growing demand is coming from both individual and institutional investors, the institutional investors by nature place more money into the system to be able to receive the returns that they need. This fundamental need provides for a larger appetite for investment which provides for more strength to the crypto economy.
Investors with a large network are stepping into the market and have a belief that bitcoin can surpass the $500,000 in the long term if it is able to sustain it’s advantages and beat out the current system.
Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock, summed the current state of BTC and Fiat nicely on Fox Business
“The real question is not how high can bitcoin go. The real question is how low can fiat currency go—and at the end of the day all fiat currencies have gone to zero and that’s because they end up with irresponsible money printing. We have all these currencies since Bretton Woods, fluctuating against each other, and maybe the dollar hasn’t gone to zero against these currencies but all of them have gone down 95% … versus something that they can’t control like … gold and bitcoin. So bitcoin may be on its way to a million for all we know.”
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Zurich, Switzerland: Solar Bankers, a mature company that has the world’s slovenly and inefficient energy markets in its sights, has launched SunCoin in an ICO that will ultimately see the firm using blockchain technology to develop decentralized, renewable energy community microgrids.
As a crypto enterprise, Solar Bankers is a rare business that is marrying up its own technological innovations with the most advanced blockchain technology to create a disruptive force so strong that even the world’s energy giants won’t be able to resist.
When people buy SunCoin, they’re purchasing a pioneering cryptocurrency that is one of the first to be built on the SkyLedger Blockchain platform.
The Solar Bankers team chose SkyLedger because it offers near-instant transaction processing, greater security, much better scalability potential and is more environmentally friendly than the Ethereum platform that has been chosen by the majority of ICOs to date.
Helping people profit from the sun
By leveraging the extremely efficient solar hardware developed by a team led by CTO, Dr. Carlo Maragliano, Solar Bankers aims to make small-scale solar energy production profitable for businesses and households throughout the world.
At the same time, Solar Bankers is developing a blockchain-based, decentralized, peer-to-peer energy market that will enable people to create their own community microgrids. Through these, renewable energy producers will be able to sell their excess electricity to neighbouring energy users.
“We’ve spent years developing Solar Bankers energy-generating technology and have succeeded in creating one of the world’s most efficient photovoltaic systems,” said Dr. Carlo Maragliano, CTO of Solar Bankers.
“We’re currently undertaking pilot projects in Dubai, Turkey and China before finalizing the manufacturing arrangements and bringing our range of products to market.
“The launch of SunCoin in an ICO is the first step in the second part of our mission, which is to create the world’s first peer-to-peer renewable energy marketplace.
“Once up and running, people will be able to use SunCoin to trade energy within our network of renewable energy community microgrids and also to purchase Solar Bankers’ renewable energy hardware.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time for everyone at Solar Bankers. In SkyLedger, we’ve partnered with the best Blockchain platform available. It’s the ideal foundation to support the delivery of our vision of a newly re-wired energy marketplace, one that is both climate friendly and people-powered. The launch of SunCoin marks a crucial milestone on the road to achieving our goals.”
The SunCoin ICO launched on 22nd November and is set to run for one month. However, there are bonuses of up to 40% available for early SunCoin buyers, giving a strong incentive for people to invest early.
More information about SunCoin and the ICO can be found at solarbankers.com. The whole Solar Bankers system is comprehensively explained in this video.
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Bail Bloc is a project that aims to help people awaiting trial who can’t afford to post bail by mining Monero using spare computing power off the volunteers’ computers. It is the brainchild of a non-profit online publication, New Inquiry.
The money raised by the project will be donated to the Bronx Freedom Fund, a non-profit that raises money for bail for poor defendants. Initially, the fund will only focus on New York City, but they have plans to expand their scope in 2018. If everything goes as planned, the Bronx Freedom Fund is going to help as many as 160,000 people over the next five years in more than three dozen cities.
It’s quite simple – users need to install the Bail Bloc app on their laptop, and it silently runs in the background using 10 percent of spare processing power to mine Monero. Users can also override the 10 percent default allocation of spare processing power, and boost it to up to 50 percent.
At the end of every month, the Monero that has been mined this way is exchanged for U.S. dollars, and the earnings are donated to the Bronx Freedom Fund. The fund then helps people who can’t afford to pay for their bail. Moreover, Bronx Freedom Fund’s model is capable of recycling the money. So when a person released on bail attends their court appointment, the funds are released to the Bronx Freedom Fund, and recycled to help other people.
According to the calculator on their website, Bail Bloc can generate approximately $30,000 if 1,000 people use the app for 12 months.
The primary reason the creators of Bail Bloc have picked Monero is the low requirement of computing power or specialized equipment for mining Monero, unlike Bitcoin. Moreover, Monero is also supposed to be more secure, private, and untraceable than Bitcoin.
According to the creators of Bail Bloc, very few people regularly donate cash to the organizations they support. Therefore, they decided to go the digital route. That makes sense. If people are given the opportunity to help an organization by just installing an app and allocating a portion of unused processing power, they are more likely to do so, as compared to donating cash.
Bail Bloc is designed to enable people to resist the broken justice system of the United States. It’s not just about the money though. Anyone who decides to participate in the project also becomes part of a community working together to end bail.
According to statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, the number of people held in pretrial detention every day in the U.S. is a staggering 450,000. What is even more concerning is the fact that a significant portion of these people are there only because they can’t afford to post bail.
The fact that people have to face such injustice just because they are poor is appalling. But that’s not all – this also perpetuates a vicious cycle where people who can’t post bail have to remain in jail, which in turn can lead to increased criminal behaviour and consequently, make them even poorer.
Bail Bloc has the potential to give these unfortunate people their freedom back. When you think about it, the idea of enabling people to give away a portion of their computer’s unused processing power to give poor people the opportunity to get their freedom back is anything but sheer genius.
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Nivaura is a startup who states that they want to make issuance and administration of financial instruments cheaper and faster while ensuring compliance. They have worked to build their product and undergo regulator approvals while winning some recognitions from institutions such as UBS Future of Finance, Accenture Innovation Lab, Microsoft Ventures, Digital Swiss Kickstart Accelerator and FCA Sandbox.
The blockchain startup who was in a stealth and has recently went ahead and started making waves in the financial sphere is now launching another series of waves with the initiation of their first bond offering denominated exclusively in ether.
Another strong move for the crypto space and specifically Ether as it now supports another utilization.
Nivaura has worked with the legal framework set up by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority and this new sort of offering was issued by the London based luxury retail startup LuxDeco. Nivaura and luxdeco worked with a host of industry leaders to create this offering that would meet a particular need that they had: To be able to raise bridge capital to meet short term seasonal demand.
The specific significance isn’t necessarily in the adoption of ether and using it as the underlying asset or denominated currency but rather the use of the public Ethereum blockchain. The bond will be processed through it’s clearing, settling and registration on the blockchain. This implementation also acts as a small experiment in Nivaura’s overall mission.
“Making Financial Services Invisible: Technology for faster, cheaper and compliant on-demand issuance and administration of financial instruments.”
If the offering can go off without a hitch this means that they are well on their way to effectively executing and will be one step closer to accomplishing their mission of removing financial intermediaries. If they are able to remove financial intermediaries they are able to make the process much faster and efficient, minimizing costs and maximizing potential, allowing small business more access to investment on a much larger scale.
This new deployment helps to back the thesis of Nivaura team in proving that there is significant enterprise application potential when using public blockchains.
The founder of Nivaura, Sehra, stated :
“What we’re showing is you can use open public infrastructure for regulated financial instruments, and this is a very critical step, because from the earliest stages we’ve always believed that public blockchains are the way forward.”
The other big name parties that were involved with the successful deployment include; JPMorgan, law firm Allen & Overy and Moody’s.
JPMorgan assisted in piecing together a bond that will be utilized for a variety of asset classes and customization for their own internal processes.
The law firm Allen & Overy was able to assist in putting together legally compliant documentation “that automated the work using Ethereum smart contracts”.
Lastly, Moody’s helped to price the financial instrument by giving the team the right information to generate yield curves, incorporating the volatility of Ethereum into the inherent structure of the bond.
According to Coindesk, specifically, while a control experiment (discussed in greater detail below) paid 2.5 percent annual interest, the ethereum bond is expected to offer annual interest of about 10 percent to help offset the perceived risk of using a cryptocurrency prone to rapid price fluctuations.
Ether used to purchase the bond was be deposited to a public address called the Nivaura Client ETH Account. To help conclude the process, investors, in turn, must confirm the account in which they’d like to receive principal and interest when the bond reaches maturity on Nov. 29.
While the entire process was designed to be as self-service as possible, a trustee service is also being provided by Australia-based Link Asset Services (previously known as Capita) in case the issuer defaults on the loan.
“A blockchain can’t do that,” said Sehra, elaborating:
“A blockchain can’t go and enforce a contract and reclaim the assets for the investors. This is essentially where an accountable third party is always required.”
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Ben Lawsky has served as a New York Superintendent of Financial Services who led the BitLicense regulatory framework while in office and has now joined the startup Ripple. He will serve on the board of directors.
The press release states that that he will help push Ripple’s payment platform including its digital coin (XRP).
In a strange turn of events, the man who made it hard for crypto startups to exist as regulator will now be helping to scale up a portion of the crypto industry.
“The company and its leadership are passionate about making our global financial system more efficient, more secure and more fair,” he said in a statement.
Benjamin Meier Lawsky is an American attorney and New York State’s first Superintendent of Financial Services serving through June, 2015, and former Acting Superintendent of Banks serving through 2011.
In his time playing the role of regulator he helped to create the bitlicense (which has only been given to three startups circle, coinbase and lastly, Ripple). The regulation was implemented in August 2015. As of January 2017 only three BitLicenses were awarded, many have tried to recieve it but only a few were chosen..
The bitlicense caused a lot of hardship for startups, not just how they were treatet. But by the law and what they were and weren’t allowed to do. The Bitlicense or business license of virtual currency activities regulations applied only to activities happening within New York or with a New York resident.
Further Details on BitLicense
The regulations define virtual currency business activity as any one of the following types of activities:
But, the 2 following activities are excluded from the definition of virtual currency business activity:
Many are still in an ongoing legal battle to have this hurdle removed.
After Lawsky left his post as a regulator he created a consulting firm and started advising the cryptocurrency industry.
And after a little while he has taken the plunge and is now immersed in the virtual currency space.
Lawsky stated “Ripple is the leading enterprise blockchain company in the world today and is one that truly understands the importance of regulation-enabled innovation. The company and its leadership are passionate about making our global financial system more efficient, more secure and more fair. I share those same goals and am thrilled and humbled to work side by side with their incredible team as they continue to pave the way for the growth and accelerating adoption of blockchain and digital assets in the years ahead.”
This could be a smart move for Ripple as it seems they are sticking to the strategy of understanding the current regulatory framework, by building a business catering to the current system by bringing the innovation to them. Their goal increasingly seems to be to work with the established players and to build together and this is evidenced by their latest meetings and additions to their team.
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The regulators in the Moroccan country, state that virtual currencies are not in accordance with their laws and specifically are in violation of their foreign exchange regulations. Those who continue to engage in activities related will be subject to fines and penalties, according to the central bank of Morocco. But the government is cautiously optimistic when it comes to the larger use cases for the technology.
Bank Al-Maghrib, the central bank in Morocco in conjunction with Morocco’s Office des Changes (Foreign Exchange Office) issued a public statement on November 20th about this matter:
“penalties and fines would apply to anyone engaging in transactions with foreign countries that do not go through the proper channels or authorized intermediaries” — or in foreign currencies not listed by Bank Al-Maghrib.
The announcement sought to clarify further by following suit of what other central banks and other regulators have stated time and time again, investing in virtual currencies is risky, and that at the current moment, none of these currencies are backed by any institutions in the political or financial realms.
The release made clear that it is now illegal to issue, supply or otherwise use cryptocurrency because it has been designated an illegal means of payment.
They did express a more friendly sentiment on the uses of the technology, saying that:
“As a hidden payment system that is not backed by a financial institution, the use of virtual currencies entails significant risks for their users.
The Office des Changes, in collaboration with Bank Al-Maghrib and the Professional Group of Banks of Morocco, follow with interest the evolution of virtual currencies in Morocco.”
But in what aspect and what context these currencies will evolve are still to be seen, upon further inspection, there still isn’t great legal clarity on the use of these currencies. The statements focused primarily on the exchange and trade of foreign currencies.
To further complicate things there was no statement on the other activities of the cryptocurrency space.
How exactly does the government plan to track cryptocurrency transactions? How will the government treat young companies who are planning to launch businesses to meet the needs of consumers in the country? The regulator has not explicitly made any remarks in regards to cryptocurrency operators or mining activities that take place or are based in the country.
Local media outlets have estimated that virtual payments worth around US$200,000 (RM840,000) pass through Morocco each day, even if it’s just an estimate, it is still a large amount of bitcoin.
It seems that despite popularity of bitcoin in the country of Morocco, the substance of this announcement was not expected. Of course, the people thought that there would soon be an announcement and an official stance by the government but not something like this. Many are disappointed by the substance of the press release which many can construe as a threat against all users of bitcoin in the country. There are those in the country who will seek to claim their rights to use of the virtual currency and hope that bitcoin is unstoppable.
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The banking giant, J.P Morgan, seems to be considering entering into the bitcoin futures trading market by providing it’s clients with access to CME’s new btc futures offering to come out later this month.
This is surprising news because the CEO of J.P Morgan, Jamie Dimon has been rather critical in the news about the cryptocurrency. Calling bitcoin a fraud and chastising those who invest in it, saying those who invest in bitcoin are “stupid”.
Rather bold words for someone who is considering whether or not to enter into the btc market or not.
It has been reported by Wall Street Journal that J.P Morgan is currently in the discovery phase of entering the btc futures markets.
As CME and Cboe is venturing into the space and getting the right legal checks in place before deploying their contracts, other players have to take notice and look at the larger picture. They have to look at the risks and the benefits of the trend and see what their best option would be. Should they sit this move out or should they also jump into the fray.
Many are jumping into the fray in various ways, launching funds, etfs, contracts, etc that are bitcoin oriented but many of these are not the old guard, these are typically investors and groups with a different mindset.
We haven’t heard too much from other major banks in the U.S and other countries in regards to bitcoin and how they want to get involved but we do keep hearing from Chase.
With a large bank like Chase looking at the benefits of bitcoin futures and conducting a serious assessments, into what it means in the present and moving forward, it adds at the very least, some insight into the longevity of bitcoin.
The financial institution needs to also take into account the needs, requests and demands of it’s clients, if there is enough demand and the bank doesn’t respond, then the clients might go elsewhere, leading to lost revenue. At the same time, it needs to take into consideration the risks that it will be liable for in taking on the facilitation of these potential trades.
The source as reported by Bloomberg and others, does not want to be named because this topic is still being debated internally and deliberations are still proceeding.
The actions that are taken in this case may set a precedent for other banks and financial players allowing for further bitcoin penetration into the general market, thereby having more awareness and increased utility.
CME is aiming to have the futures derivative contracts deployed by the end of this year and it is still in the process of receiving approval and filing the necessary paperwork.
The top man at J.P Morgan may have his own personal feelings on the digital coin but if his customers want to speculate on the currency he has to give in at certain threshold, he is, after all, running a profit seeking entity.
There may be other factors at play leading to this possible about face on bitcoin but primarily, it has to be based on the increase in the value of the coin fueling further interest among more parties.
Bloomberg Tech notes that JPMorgan already allows clients some access to bitcoin through an exchange-traded note, which involves routing their orders to exchanges. Handling client trades of futures contracts is conceptually similar but could still pose some risks, according to the person.
Even if you’re the head of a large bank and state “If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price for it one day” about a certain in demand good you still have to listen to the market and make your moves accordingly.
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