Will the Co-Founder of Ethereum Leave Cryptoland?

Vitalik has had it with the crypto shenanigans

The co-founder of the cryptocurrency and platform Ethereum is fed up with cryptoland. He thinks that there are too many acts of negligence, hubris, and chicanery in the world of crypto and he wants it to stop. He believes that if these actions don’t end, he’ll have to leave the crypto-ecosystem for other greener pastures.

 The young founder recently went on Twitter and expressed his various concerns about issues that are taking place and believes that it is necessary for a fundamental change to take place in that subculture. He wants to make sure that more crypto projects are coming out focused on the betterment of society and not for the aspect of opportunism.

Vitalik on Twitter

Buterin, who helps to run the widely used Ethereum network, which is utilized for various matters such as initial coin offerings and the development of tokens and other issues, has gone on the popular social media platform, Twitter, to talk about the state of the crypto community as a whole. He has seen some defects which he would like to see corrected in within the short term. He believes that the removal of these errors will lead to a stronger and vibrant ecosystem.

An issue that is causing him great concern is that of the increasing prices in coins. As of this current writing the market capitalization of the of the digital currency market fluctuating at an excess of 500 billion dollars. A staggering increasing from where it was sitting at the beginning of the year, at a small 20 billion dollars.

This rapid increase is not sitting well with him, making him think that the market is heavily overvalued.

He’s stated this via tweets:

“All crypto communities, ethereum included, should heed these words of warning. Need to differentiate between getting hundreds of billions of dollars of digital paper wealth sloshing around and actually achieving something meaningful for society.”

He wants to make sure that money that is moving around in the ecosystem is being put to good use to provide something that has value for society. He states that at the current moment, it seems that nothing is being shown for all the investment that the community has received. The most prominent deliverables from the ecosystem look like it is in the form of “lambo memes and immature puns about sharting.”

The threat of leaving

If the community still seems to be continuing in that direction, he states that “I WILL LEAVE,” but he believes that there is much hope for the community as it continues to grow.

He may have been responding to the lack of maturity by the community on a recent blog post on the critical topic of sharding, a matter currently being heavily discussed in the serious Ethereum community.

The aspect of sharding would allow for scalability. According, to SearchCloudComputing, sharding is a type of database partitioning that separates extensive databases the into smaller, faster, more efficiently managed parts called data shards. The word shard means a small part of a whole.

As Vitalik has stated, there is great immaturity in a significant space, and he wants to see more overall growth.

Price Growth but lack of value

There is an increase in the growth of the price of Ethereum and many of the companies that have its tokens on the platform but there has to be growth regarding value and deliverables, or the whole ecosystem, may quite well be, in a bubble.

The post Will the Co-Founder of Ethereum Leave Cryptoland? appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

ATBCoin is Now Facing a Class-Action Lawsuit Over Their $20 Million ICO

ATB and the class action lawsuit

One can now add ATB to the list of companies that have conducted an ICO and have run into issues afterward. This latest company has run into problems because they might not have adequately represented the token offering. This lack of clarity made the investors feel as if they exchanged their currency for a token that may not have been classified in the manner that they believed it to be.

The Plaintiffs, which filed the claim in the state of New York, state that the company, ATB, is in violation of securities laws. The defendants believe that the token can be considered as security, and if the released token can be viewed as such, it would be necessary for the issuing company to register with the proper regulatory authorities and represent it as such.  The plaintiffs are not questioning the legitimacy of the company; they are questioning the nature of the Initial Coin Offering. Does it classify as a security or not?

The Lawsuit

The plaintiff’s case can be summarized via their comment:

“The ATB ICO was a clear offer and sale of securities because, inter alia [among other things], Defendants touted, and Plaintiff and other ATB ICO investors reasonably expected, that the ATB Coins received in exchange for their investments would be worth more than the ETH, BTC, LTC or other currencies invested.”

ATB and it’s Initial Coin Offering

What is ATB?

The company states that the ATB Coin provides value because it incorporates all the best features available in the new blockchain-based currencies into its coin. The team over at ATB also states that they’ve built a full scale – investment platform capable of organizing the financial assets of users by using the world’s most secure and reliable payments system. ATB, which stands for Alternative Technology Base, aims to offer a state of the art technology solution,  with the aspects of Segwit and the Lightning Network already integrated. These integrations, according to the company, allow for secure and near zero cost payments to anyone in the world. The company aims to iron out the current issues in cryptocurrency domain, such as the increasing number of attacks and forks, transaction fees, lack of malleability and more.

The ICO

ATB was able to raise 20 million dollars in the raise. The team at ATB deployed their ICO in June and concluded the fundraising event in July.

Investors claim that the company had various stages in their funding cycle and carried their fundraising event through the September by launching the second phase in August.

The company blog posts align with these statements, as they did extend their crowd sale and proceeded to distribute tokens in September.

Their tokens are currently trading at the price of $0.480 on exchanges like YObit.net, HitBTC, TOPBTC, and btcalpha.com.

ATB statements

The team over at ATB stated in a blog post that they have abided by the law and that they never accepted investment funds from American citizens.

“We want to remind you that from the very beginning of the project, ATB Coin never accepted investment funds from American citizens. All users of the platform accepted the terms and conditions of our Offer and agreed with the point that they are not residents of the United States. This condition has always been and is mandatory when registering at atbcoin.com.”

The company stated further:

“At the moment, the ATB Coin investor can be a citizen of any other country and must obey the rules operating on its territory. These conditions are indicated in the clauses of our Offer (http://ift.tt/2zUp3KH). All users must accept the terms of this Offer upon registration to confirm acquaintance with the specifics of the cryptocurrency and the possible risks.”

The need for clarity on token offerings

If more cases like ATB, Tezos, and Centra continue to present themselves, regulators like the Securities Exchange Commission will be forced to step in and clarify which sort of ICO tokens are securities and which are not.

View additional details in the filing through ATB Coin Complaint posted by CoinDesk.

The post ATBCoin is Now Facing a Class-Action Lawsuit Over Their $20 Million ICO appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

South Korean Regulators Are Conducting Checks With Cryptocurrency Exchanges to Ensure Their Safety

South Korea stepping up regulatory activities

Authorities in the country of South Korea are stepping up their actions in the cryptocurrency realm. These authorities are concerned due to recent hacks that have been taken place at cryptocurrency exchanges and want to make sure that these cryptocurrency exchanges are meeting the guidelines for the safety of their site.   Thus, they have taken it upon themselves to physically visit crypto related exchanges and make sure that there are measures taken have barriers against attacks. This activity is spurred by recent happenings such as the attack on Youbit which eventually led the crypto-trading company to close its doors within the current month of December.

Inspection Details

An announcement made by their regulatory authority, the Office for Government Policy Coordination, elaborated further on details of the operations that have already taken place and on the actions that will continue to take place going forward.

Apparently, representatives of the aforementioned regulatory body have already started the process of visiting the premises of these digital currency exchanges and are performing their due diligence on the state of these companies.

They are primarily checking for the ability and the history of the firms and their compliance with the legal decrees that were imposed upon them by the government of South Korea. If these firms meet the criteria set, they can continue their operations without any hassles or issues. It seems that these officials are finding that the firms are not in compliance with rules set forth and are failing in meeting the established standards.

According to news reports, this lack of adherence is giving the inspectors pause and causing them a significant amount of displeasure.

The recently published notice provides a bit more detail on the operations, observations, and results.

The notice states there was an inspection of meaningful exchanges in the industry. The investigations consisted of administrative and technical security checks, and the results were subpar.

According to a rough translation, the notice read:

“As a result of conducting on-site inspections on the major virtual currency exchanges, most of the surveyed companies (10 companies) conducted administrative and technical security such as installation and operation of access control devices and encryption measures of personal information Overall, the measures were found to be inadequate.”

Youbit and it’s hack

Regulators have to make sure there is a certain amount of security and are pushed to do so due to the seeming lack of self-regulation by crypto companies participating the private sector. The latest hack of Youbit, caused the company to close down, causing distress to those who place funds in the exchange. A significant cause for alarm is the fact this firm was attacked in the past and still didn’t have enough security and measures implemented to ward off another attack. Another cause for concern was the fact that the company had been received these attacks within the same year. This latest occurrence made matters worse and later led to the firm to initiate the process of bankruptcy and close down.

Matters of National Security

The South Korean government may be stepping up its efforts due to concerns that they are being hacked from their neighbor to the North. South Korea has reason to believe that the government of North Korea is stepping up their efforts to steal digital assets from various exchanges and companies across the world.

The institution that investigates cybercrimes in the region, South Korea’s Internet and Security Agency (Kisa), stated that it is investigating how the hackers gained access to the exchange’s core systems.

The cybercrimes unit further stated that the previous attack on Youbit was tied to a hacking group working for North Korea. Separate incidents involving other South Korean exchanges such as Bithumb and Coinis are also being linked to the North Korean regime.

Self Regulation, Security or Imposed Regulations

If exchanges are not able to self-regulate and put in place proper measures to prevent hacks and minimize losses in the event of hacks, then governments will do it for them. When governments step in, they carry with them many constrictions that may not be favored by the marketplace.

Self-regulate or get regulated by external parties.

The post South Korean Regulators Are Conducting Checks With Cryptocurrency Exchanges to Ensure Their Safety appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Will Israel’s Security Regulator Ban Crypto-Related Companies on Exchanges?

Israel and the crypto economy

The country of Israel has been making headlines in the news as of late for their different comments, actions and potential actions on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Relatively recently, Benjamin Netanyahu, their Prime Minister, commented on the reason why Bitcoin was so successful and both how and why it would have an impact on banks and financial institutions going forward.

Then, the Israeli Central bank has been looking at the possibility of implementing a crypto shekel, but they are still in the early stages of that proposal.

Now, we are experiencing some confusion in another regulatory body in the state of Israel, (maybe they didn’t get the memo from their regulatory and legislative peers). A representative from the Israeli Securities Authority (ISA), Hauser, stated to the publication Reuters, that they are going to be looking at different companies closely and will be determining if they have to impose stringent regulations.

The specific companies of focus will be that of those that are aiming to have primary activities in the cryptocurrency sector.

Hauser, the leader of the ISA, stated that they are seeking to review a plan that will be introduced in the upcoming year. The proposal would prohibit bitcoin trading and crypto business entities from being a part of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).

He commented:

“If we have a company [and] their main business is digital currencies, we would not allow it. If already listed, its trading will be suspended.”

There are a few steps that this proposal must go through before being implemented and being in effect. First, the plan must be accepted and approved, then it must be presented at a public hearing and then it would be implemented if everything works out without any objections or hassles.

Once it passes all these steps, it would then be a law that their exchange would have to heed.

The move is not unexpected

The ISA has been looking into the emerging market since August of this year and have stated that they would be reviewing the concept of ICO’s as they progress. There have not been significant movements by the regulator until now.

The ISA may be looking to be more stringent because some companies may be taking advantage of the sector by merely stating that they are a blockchain company. These companies brand themselves as a technology-focused business entity,  just to see their shares jump, despite the fact that they may have no plans to implement or deploy blockchain technology in the present or the future.

How are market participants responding?

A CEO of a brokerage has commented on the matter, stating that they did have the ability to open up room for Bitcoin futures on the Israeli exchange. Their statements can be perceived as a defiant response to the ISA. Especially at a time when the regulatory watchdog is going to be looking at a plan to ban bitcoin trading and affiliated business entities from the exchange.

Assous, the CEO a brokerage named IBI Brokerage and a representative of a non-banking association stated that if it was good for CBOE, it must be good for them as well.

He believes that it is necessary for their stock exchange to participate now and continue to compete in this emerging market as there will be various opportunities to move forward and do well on a global scale.

He thinks that it is necessary to take actions in this sector now to be able to be a leader in the space as they progress.

Hauser’s past comments

Hauser has mentioned in the past that he is interested in the development of the sector but that there must be regulation. He also noted that there’s a possibility for those who do build up the system currently to be a global hub of support for the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

“I believe that the topic of digital currencies and their offerings must receive a favorable regulatory response, maybe even daring somewhat, to give a chance for the option to develop an international financial center for security-coin from the type of ICOs.”

The post Will Israel’s Security Regulator Ban Crypto-Related Companies on Exchanges? appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Goldman Sachs is Planning to Launch Crypto Trading in Mid-2018

Goldman Sachs to move into the cryptocurrency sector next year

Goldman Sachs will be jumping into the cryptocurrency industry in the middle of 2018. The firm will be offering assets of the digital nature for trading due to increased demand.

Traditional money flows into the emerging market, Goldman responds

The firm is pioneering the way as a traditional established player to take steps to enter the cryptocurrency market and welcome Bitcoin and its peers in their entirety.

Goldman Sachs has responded to cryptocurrency demand by taking efforts to establish an in-house team to handle and address the different matters that will be related to the upcoming deployment of their trading desk for this sector.

They are looking into various aspects of how to safely provide services and minimize their liability in case of issues. Thus, they are researching the different problems that come with the act of stepping into the industry and are looking at ways to manage these potential problems.

A significant point that they have run across is the idea of how to safely collect and keep these digital assets since they will be the ones who are responsible for acting a custodial manner for these assets in the digital realm.

Goldman has also stepped into the trading of futures albeit with stringent requirements for customers, (requiring margins that some may perceive as too conservative).

This is one financial institution that has looked at the advent of the digital currencies more reasonably, at least in most instances, and have taken actions that are in line with their reasoning. Many other institutional peers have stayed away from the market for various reasons, a common reasons being volatility and lack of regulation.

Adoption and Perception from other firms

As the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry grows, other firms are looking at the emerging technology and overall sector in different lights. A few firms choose to adopt the underlying blockchain technology in small scale and make continuous movements into the blockchain space without touching Bitcoin at all. While others are looking at the market from a more holistic perspective and researching different opportunities that might forms of revenue in the present and the long term.

Examples of firms utilizing the blockchain technology are increasing, as traditional exchanges in various countries switch from their current mode of operation for clearing transactions and switch to blockchain based technologies.

There is also an uptick in various firms seeking to deploy mutual fund like products and other traditional financial products solely focused on the cryptocurrency sector.

Bubble Talk Shifts for some

Along with this rise is a shift in the minds of some financial representatives in regards to the notion of a bubble.

A recent comment by a Charles Schwab executive was:

“…I think the Bitcoin bubble if you want to call it that, is something different. If prices for Bitcoin were to plunge suddenly, because it’s so independent from the financial system, it’s kind of its own thing. It hasn’t yet become embedded in the economy and the financial structure.”

While others in the financial industry have noted that it is necessary to look at the emerging virtual currencies like Bitcoin in a different light, assuming “pure speculation” may mean that many are not conducting their due diligence and doing their “homework” on the matter.

The post Goldman Sachs is Planning to Launch Crypto Trading in Mid-2018 appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Are Australian Banks Meddling With Crypto Transactions?

Trouble in Ausssie Cryptoland?

It seems that there might be an increasing possibility that large financial institutions in the country of Australia are freezing customer accounts or reversing and rejecting charges that are related to cryptocurrencies. The general feeling or sentiment from consumers is that banks are doing so since they feel threatened via the cryptocurrency space.

In a tweet published by Nugget’s News Australia, there was a mention of various banks in the country of Australia who are freezing customer accounts and transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges located in Australia.

“So @NAB @CommBank @WestpacNZ and @ANZ_AU are all freezing customer accounts and transfers to @BTCMarkets @coinspotau @GetCoinJar @coinbase. #Banks can fight it, but people want control of their money #ausbiz #auspol”

Customers Affected

This seems to be an issue that is affecting an increasing amount of Australian cryptocurrency market participants and is something that has started happening relatively recently.

A few consumers on the popular social media site Reddit, on the forum /r/bitcoin, have stated that they weren’t affected, but others have made comments that are in line with the freezing of accounts and reversals of deposits.

“Anecdotally, this happened to me.

I transferred to BTC Markets on 23/12, received the funds back in my NAB account today 28/12 with no explanation.

Thank you banks for reminding me why I like crypto in the first place!”

Another commenter stated:

“This happened to me with poli, my account on btcmarkets was then lockideasand I received an email saying I need to direct debit the money back and my account will be unlocked.”

While another noted a gentle reminder, bringing up one crucial point, your fiat isn’t your money, even when the cash is in your hand.

This fundamental fact is one of the most influential reasons as to why many of the initial people who have stepped into the cryptocurrency industry from the early stages will be hard pressed to sell.

These long-term ‘hodlers’ believe that there is a fundamental value in having a form of exchange that can happen outside the borders of the traditional fiat based system.

The Australian Exchanges

There have been confirmations from Australian cryptocurrency exchanges in regards to these happenings. The Australian cryptocurrency exchange Coinspot mentioned that there is a temporary restriction on all forms of AUD deposits and this will remain in effect until at least the first week of the new year.  The exchange did state that in regards to AUD withdrawals, coin deposits. Buy/sell orders and trading on the platform will continue to operate regularly.

The exchange further stated :

“We assure you we are just as unhappy with the situation as you but unfortunately Australian banks have been so far unwilling to work with the digital currency industry which leads to frequent account closures and strict limits on accounts whilst they remain operational, in effect debanking our industry.”

The exchange believes that as the appetite for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continues to grow that it may be best that everyone have regulation so that everyone can benefit.

Coinspot will continue to work to resolve this issue, by seeking out banks that they can partner with for the long term.

In regards to regulations

Their line of reasoning is that if there is a form of control, then consumers don’t have to go through underground means of accomplishing their objectives, as private ways may be unsafe.

This places the cryptocurrency community at a crossroads, can they continue to exist in this manner and must there be stringent regulations that may somewhat constrict their actions in the name of safety? It’s a tough choice, a fundamental aspect of the appeal of cryptocurrencies is the fact that they, to a certain extent, exist outside of the traditional financial markets, becoming an ecosystem of their own. There are risks within the emerging market but does one have to sacrifice the fundamental ideas of liberty and privacy in crypto for safety?

The post Are Australian Banks Meddling With Crypto Transactions? appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

The Segwit2x fork has been successfully launched on December 28th

On December 28th, one of the main hard forks took place in Bitcoin history, Segwit2X, which revealed acute problems in the work of crypto-exchanges, wallets, and decentralization in general. Why ordinary users are left with less and less choice and how to solve this problem?

 

Recall that after the announcement of the Segwit2X project, the price of B2X futures increased 3-fold, and the day before the fork, the price for them rose by another 75%. Right after the start, the most powerful support for Segwit2X was provided by the miners. The aggregate capacity of friendly mining pools accounted for more than 300 Th/s. All these facts point to the importance of BITCOIN Segwit2X for the crypto-community!

This unanimous support for ordinary users is due to the technologies that B2X offers. It is able to get rid of high commissions for transactions and low speed of the Bitcoin network itself. Furthermore, Bitcoin is no longer decentralized, since the main production capacities are concentrated in the hands of several pools.

And how it feels to live in a world without freedom of choice, where everything is predetermined in advance? Everyone agrees, that such state of events is terrible. And it’s terrible that the crypto-world with its idea of decentralization and independence from official structures is becoming more centralized. Some cryptocurrency exchanges and electronic wallets try to impose their ideology on users, deciding whether to list a coin or not, as well as whether to accrue B2X to their users! At the same time, this ideology is dictated by nothing other than the number of zeros. Thus, companies deprive their clients of the right to choose and monopolize the market. And this will never have good consequences in the long run.

Understanding that they became the hostages of the situation, users initiated the creation of a petition at Change.org to support the fork of BITCOIN Segwit2X, which was already signed by more than 50 thousand people. And one of the users even left a meaningful comment: “The entire decentralized community needs Segwit2X. If we do not decide to be a fork or not, then there is no decentralized community”. Their support was especially valuable to the project team, which from the very first day faced unprecedented pressure and threats on their way since someone thought that BITCOIN Segwit2X has an impact on the Bitcoin rate.

Despite all these obstacles, the fork of BITCOIN – Segwit2X was successfully launched, thereby proving that the freedom of choice in the modern crypto-market is more urgent than ever!

More information about the project can be found on the official website and in social networks:

http://ift.tt/2l7RuPV
https://twitter.com/Segwit_2X

The post The Segwit2x fork has been successfully launched on December 28th appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

What Will Happen to Bitcoin in 2018?

The growth of bitcoin has been unprecedented. The only thing that stopped its price increase w2as that of the massive sell-off that took place last week. Yet, most say that these sort of corrections are good and will help it bounce back into higher realms next year.

The faith of some may have been shaken, but it’s not always rosy in cryptoland, and most who have been in it from the early stages know this fact intimately. One must have strong convictions in this arena or be slain by self-doubt.

However, there is a potential that many might not check twice before believing in price predictions for the end of next year, December 2018.

Investors might think of a conservative number for the increase in value and might place it at a less crazy number in the coming year.

Ronnie Moas Predictions

Moas, an analyst in the field who has been on point with his expectations for the growth of the currency, conducted an interview with Cointelegraph and had a couple observations on the price of Bitcoin moving forward.

Moas is holding strong to his faith in the pioneer cryptocurrency and still believes that Bitcoin will be the one to rule them all in terms of being the most valuable currency on earth.

He is certain that the market capitalization of Bitcoin will fly past that of the economic powerhouse in the east, China, and the current storehouse of value, Gold.

He stated:

“Bitcoin would have to jump 20x from where it is now to hit that number one spot. That would put its valuation at around $6 tln, which is near where Gold and China are right now.”

He continued:

“Why do I think Bitcoin deserves the same valuation as gold? It’s very simple, I don’t know how much Gold there is in the ground, But I know how much Bitcoin there is, and I also know that if the current pace continues with one to two mln people around the world opening up new crypto accounts. We will have a few hundred million people by this time two years from now trying to get their hands on a few million Bitcoin that are available.”

This means that the analyst is primarily looking at Bitcoin from an economics standpoint, he’s looking at the current maximum supply and looking at how many more people can benefit by opening up accounts and taking part in the financial revolution.

A few factors that he noted were, the Bitcoins that have been lost for eternity, then, those investors who will never sell and will continue to hold, treating their Bitcoin like its digital gold. The investor and bitcoin hodler thinks that Bitcoin will hit 28,000 by the end of 2018.

2018

What does 2018 look like for the growth of Bitcoin?

Well, we are going to be seeing an implementation of Segwit2x within this week and we are also going to be seeing deployments of the lightning network and other factors that could make Bitcoin stronger. Then there are other movements that are taking place with governments and how they are opening up to cryptocurrencies, slowly but surely, so 2018 looks like it could welcome a lot of growth.

The sector has barely seen the touch that Wall Street can bring to it as well, so there are a lot of opportunities for growth.

The post What Will Happen to Bitcoin in 2018? appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Japanese Tech Company GMO Internet Co Deploys Cryptocurrency Mining Project

It had been reported earlier that GMO Internet Co., Ltd, a Japanese technology company, plans to launch a cryptocurrency mining business soon. It is now evident that GMO has delivered on its word by unveiling its new venture through a release on its website.

Keeping true to promises and stated objectives

As planned by the company earlier, its new cryptocurrency mining business has been launched through its European entity and is based in Northern Europe (a specific location wasn’t mentioned by the company).

According to its previous statements, the company will also use “cutting-edge 7 nanometer process technology for chips” in the mining process.

It was further explained that once the company has had a “certain level of operation experience”, it will work on its planned initiatives including a cloud mining service and the sale of next-generation mining boards that are equipped with mining chips.

Plans for the future

It was mentioned in the official release that GMO’s cryptocurrency mining business will be utilizing existing technologies to mine for now. The company then plans to keep expanding the business in what it termed as “phases”.
Talking about the “7 nm process technology chips” again, the company stated that it plans to use it in the mining process. In addition to that, the company is currently collaborating with an alliance partner who possesses the semiconductor design technology that is necessary to deliver a high-level computer performance for mining via (the mining board).

The company further stated that next-generation mining boards equipped with these mining chips will be utilized in the mining process in the first half of 2018.

GMO further mentioned that this business will help in further supporting mining infrastructure of cryptocurrencies, which, according to the company, are the “new universal currencies.”

The company was confident in stating that it will use its considerable knowledge and experience in Internet Infrastructure and Internet Finance in order to further supplement the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry.

The company provided reassurances that it understands what it is doing

GMO affirmed its knowledge of the business model by stating that it is aware how an operation of this capacity requires highly sophisticated and powerful computers along with the assurance of a stable power supply in order to operate and cool the machines.

After presenting these points, GMO provided answers to them as well by mentioning that it has been securing existing mining technology lately in order to be the first company in Japan to launch a cryptocurrency mining business. It then reiterated that it is also currently developing high-performance computers for mining with its alliance partner for semiconductor design technology.

The company also elaborated on another aspect of the project.

“Through test operations using current technology, we confirmed that a certain level of profitability could be secured, and therefore GMO Internet officially decided to launch the cryptocurrency mining business.”

As for power source, GMO assured that it operates its mining center in Northern Europe with “plentiful renewable energy.” It further stated that this has also opened doors for low power consumption.

This is one of many cryptocurrency-based decisions by the company

GMO, a company established since the early 1990s, has recently shown its interest in making its mark in the cryptocurrency world.

A provider of Internet-based services, GMO made its way into the cryptocurrency industry by opening an exchange in May 2017.

In addition to announcing its intentions for this cryptocurrency mining business back in September 2017, the company had recently disclosed its plans to adapt cryptocurrency in its day to day operations by introducing a Bitcoin-related payroll system. In October 2017, it had also mentioned its strategy to venture into initial coin offerings (ICOs).

The post Japanese Tech Company GMO Internet Co Deploys Cryptocurrency Mining Project appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Estonia is Taking Further Actions With Their Cryptocurrency Integrations

Estonia Presents Further Suggestions For Its Cryptocurrency, Which It Wants to Call A Crypto Token Instead

You might have heard that one of Estonia’s government agencies had expressed its intent to launch its own cryptocurrency, a concept that was proposed back in August and one which was met with polarity. While some had praised the decision, others had been quite vocal about being against it.

Furthering the country’s stance on the situation, Kaspar Korjus, the Managing Director of Estonia’s e-Residency program, wrote a detailed post which not only responded to the criticism regarding the proposed cryptocurrency but also further explained the intent behind proposing it in the first place.

Korjus mentioned in the post that there has been an outpouring of support for the initiative which has helped the country in understanding how a cryptocurrency can be shaped while ensuring that it does not disrupt its relations with any stakeholders.

Specifically responding to European Central Bank’s President, Mario Draghi’s comments on how Estonia could not start its own currency and needs to stick with the Euro, Korjus clarified their stance by stating that challenging the Euro was never their intent.

Korjus wrote:

“Estonia’s only currency is the euro and this is an essential feature of our EU membership, which we are proud to have. No one here is interested in changing that. That’s why we have always referred to estcoin as a proposed ‘crypto token’.”

“Governments do need to consider the disruptive impact of how crypto tokens can be used as currency because they provide a more efficient means for exchanging value globally. However, crypto tokens have far more significance than their use as a currency and don’t necessarily fall into that category.”

Korjus further clarified that the “crypto token”, named “estcoin”, was only proposed as a way to raise money and support for the development of their e-Residency program from people around the world.

He explained that the aim of these tokens is to help incentivize their own key objective for the e-Resident program, which is to increase the number of companies started in Estonia through e-Residency.

What is the e-resident program anyway?

The e-Resident program is Estonia’s initiative to involve businesses and entrepreneurs from around the world in order to attract more business opportunities for the country.

Anyone from outside Estonia can apply for the program, which provides them with a government-issued digital identity, allowing them to “run a global, EU-company online from anywhere in the world”.

e-Residents can gain access to online services such as the ones outlined below.

• Digitally sign documents and contracts
• Verify authenticity of signed documents
• Encrypt and transmit documents securely
• Establish an Estonian company online
• Administer your company from anywhere in the world
• Apply for third-party services like e-Banking and remote money transfers
• Access online payment service providers

Solutions provided for the crypto token

After clarifying the government agency’s stance behind the proposal, Korjus went on to explain how they think the crypto token could be put to use.

1. Community Estcoin

This particular option was explained as being focused on further developing the e-Resident program. It mentioned that this would help encourage more people to apply for e-Residency.

This option could include rewards schemes that would pay out in estcoin. It was explained that this would encourage businesses to adopt the token and would work towards trusted ICO activity.

1. Identity Estcoin

This was described as providing a basis for secure, government-issued digital identities.

Here, it was mentioned, estcoins would be used as “blockchain-based tokens used for activities within our digital society, such as digitally signing documents, logging into services or enforcing smart contracts.”

It was also explained that while “identity estcoins” would ultimately need to be purchased by users of the e-Residency scheme, they would not raise revenue for the nation and might only contribute to the network’s own maintenance.

1. Euro Estcoin

Before clarifying again that the government will “never provide an alternative currency to the euro,” it was further suggested that “it’s possible that we could combine some of the decentralized advantages of crypto with the stability and trust of fiat currency and then limit its use within the e-resident community.”

It was further elaborated that this fiscal use case for the token would require banks to move money in and out of the scheme. However, it was assured that community-based value exchanges could take place globally without additional charges once the amount is on the blockchain

The post went on to explain that all that will be required for this option is a digital wallet and the commitment of the government to buy back every Euro estcoin for one Euro.

World reactions still to come

It cannot be said for certain if this particular post by the Estonian agency would also have as wide a reach as the previous one, but it would be interesting to see what the world leaders especially those pertaining to the EU have to say about this. The third option seems to the most ambitious and the most controversy-inducing as well, which is why only relevant parties’ comments would be the ones to look forward to.

The post Estonia is Taking Further Actions With Their Cryptocurrency Integrations appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Long Island Iced Tea Corp. Changed Their Name to Long Blockchain Corp, Making Their Shares Increase Rapidly

Traditional companies seeking to capitalize and  jump in on blockchain growth

As the blockchain sector heats up looks, it looks like there are many companies that want to go ahead and jump in and take advantage, even if they have nothing to do with the blockchain sector or can’t be a disruptor in any way be the integration of the technology.

The latest of these companies has been one company based in the city of Long Island, New York.

The company which goes by the name of Long Island Iced Tea Corp. has seen significant growth in its share price by doing one simple and extraordinary move.

The Extraordinary move

What was this simple and extraordinary move? Simply announcing that they would be now be calling themselves the Long Blockchain Corp. Yes, they went ahead and rebranded themselves and made and then made an announcement saying that they were now stepping into the blockchain space.

The market heard their reformation cry and rewarded them with their outlook and innovative capabilities, this newly branded company, just a mere tea company from long island and was now a blockchain company, saw it’s share rise up at least upwards of 250%.

Before the announcement the micro-cap company was trucking along and experiencing regular day to day fluctuations. Then they saw the prices of shares increase,  allowing them to sip on some of their long island tea and enjoy a market capitalization of $67 million.

After the announcement, the company was now something more. But was it truly something more? Not really. One can’t wake up one morning and announce that they are an Olympian if prior to, they conducted no training and lived in a manner where one could reasonably make such an announcement.

Yet, the market saw this and the shares of the company skyrocketed.

The issues with this approach

This is a problem for a variety of reasons, the primary reason is that it could take away capital from projects that truly are blockchain based and are contributing toward that ecosystem. The next issue is that if these traditional companies, whose primary activities stem in activities that are not blockchain based in any manner, are allocated capital that doesn’t go toward furthering the space, it tarnishes the growing industry ever so slightly. The tarnishment can add to increase cynicism, which is not necessarily good for a growing industry. A growing industry that truly does have a tremendous amount of potential if utilized, fostered, and nurtured correctly.

Many traditional corporations jumping in to enjoy similar growth

This is only one of many companies that are stepping in to enjoy the growth that is being experienced by simply affiliating with the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.

This current sort of trend to rebrand was also experienced in the mid to late 90’s as the internet economy was developing.

Regular companies who were involved in non-internet sectors were simply stating that they were affiliated to the internet sector in some way and were able to see the share prices jump, yet many of these companies had no intention of ever becoming integrated into the internet sector in any way.

This re-emergent phenomenon provides more ammunition to those that say that there might be a bubble in the blockchain space.

The progress made by the company

Yet, LTEA might be a company that could progress and take actions in the blockchain space as they have announced today that they have “entered into a two-million-dollar convertible debt facility, with an additional two-million-dollar option, to support the shift of the Company’s primary corporate focus towards the exploration and investment in specific ventures relating to blockchain technology.”

The post Long Island Iced Tea Corp. Changed Their Name to Long Blockchain Corp, Making Their Shares Increase Rapidly appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

The CryptoShekel: Israel’s Next Big Thing

Did the comments made by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also known as Bibi, create a stir in the central bank of Israel?

Maybe.

As Bitguru reported earlier, just a week or two ago, the prime minister made some comments on bitcoin and its implications. He noted that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin could eventually do away with banks and other sorts of institutions due to the fact they are primarily middlemen. He addressed the fact of disintermediation and stated: “the truth behind what I just said is what’s propelling bitcoin upwards.”

These statements plus movements made by the other countries like Russia, China, USA, and others, may have pushed the Israeli Bank to seriously consider their own cryptocurrency offering.

The Bank of Israel and state-sponsored and the CryptoShekel

The central bank in Israel is studying the benefits of investing efforts into their own state-backed cryptocurrency, there are a few confirmations swirling around as to this activity by several prominent members of their state government. These officials have chosen to stay anonymous but have stated that they believe there are efforts underway, with the intent of conducting due diligence on this matter.

They are seeing that the blockchain provides a significant innovation and could prove to help improve lives through its inherent nature of being a disintermediation agent. The next aspect of this initiative is that there is a benefit that is seen in the reduction of physical shekel transactions. The problem with physical transactions is that one can account for money earned and spent in a different manner, this lack of full transparency means that there can be many instances where transactions are not accounted for. When transactions are not accounted for the tax man of the government is at poorer by the shekels that were not acquired due to lack of reporting. In addition to solving more of the tax problem and minimizing tax evasion, there also seems to be a case for the prevention of money laundering, this innovation can greatly contribute to anti-money laundering efforts due to its inherent transparent nature. It can also contribute the minimization of corruption in the government as well due to the nature of transparency, providing a significant use case for the citizens of the nation and allowing for a more democratic process.

The Ministry of Finance

The Israeli Ministry of Finance will be one of those who will be leading the charge in these regards. They are pushing for an effort to integrate an addition to a piece of legislation that will be passed through to their respective authority for approval in the month of January of next year.

This would be an important piece of legislation because it would help to form a much-needed law based framework for a CryptoShekel. This additional cause that would be added to the legislation would provide for a very rigorous and diligent proposal, giving the ministry the go-ahead or the green light to commence its tests on the state-backed crypto-currency, how it would be deployed and its various workings.

The post The CryptoShekel: Israel’s Next Big Thing appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Hedge Fund Pantera Releases Returns of Over 25,000 Percent

The year was 2013 when a then alien concept adapted in the form of a digital currency hedge fund by Princeton alumnus Dan Morehead. This marked Pantera as one of the first hedge funds in the world based on cryptocurrency.

Morehead was not new to the business world, however. He had formerly been working at Goldman Sachs and had also been the Head of Macro Trading and CFO at Tiger Global.

That being said, even Morehead could not have exactly predicted what happened, when the hedge fund released its returns of no less than 25,004 percent.

Yes, that’s not a typo. It’s not a mistake. The returns are, indeed, 25,004 percent. But 25,004 is nothing when there are other reports of 85,000%. Yes, it’s a crazy time to be alive.

Dan Morehead and others who have stepped into this market at a time when many have shied away from it are being greatly rewarded for taking a calculated risk in the space. Dan Morehead, recently also stated that bitcoin experience a major correction before trending upwards again, and bitcoin did indeed experience a correction before it has come back to its current level of $16,000.

Bitcoin is largely credited for the gains

While the whopping percentage of the gains in this virtual currency fund would be a surprise, it would not be shocking for anyone to deduce that it’s largely due to Bitcoin. The premier cryptocurrency reached the $19,000 mark fairly recently. However, it should be noted that the fund’s 25,004 percent figure was compiled a week ago when Bitcoin was at $15,500.)

At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $16,250.

Since 2013, the Pantera’s compound annual returns have been around 250 percent. Pantera did not have to take extensive measures to get those returns either. It largely just purchased Bitcoins and held them as the price went to rise up and above anyone’s expectations.

However, Morehead explains that focusing on a Bitcoin-focused hedge fund in 2013 was a difficult decision since the cryptocurrency was then widely associated with the dark web and illegal markets.

He noted in an interview with the New York Times:

“The first hard part was actually deciding to launch a cryptocurrency fund when everyone else thought that was crazy.”

The firm has experienced large growth

Pantera’s fund has made $2.1 billion for its investors in dollar terms, estimation suggests.

Pantera has kept its fundraising very limited and has opened up only to people who they believe qualify as sophisticated investors, such as investors who already have a substantial percentage of assets, investors who truly understand the risks associated with these allocations. The fund only accepts investments that start at an upwards of the  $50,000 dollar level.

According to the New York Times, investors had originally put around $150 million into the fund. That being said, investors have taken out Bitcoins worth around $1.7 billion to hold for themselves in order to avoid paying Pantera’s 0.75 percent annual fees. But even that action left Pantera with holding coins worth $400 million.

As per Morehead, one of the reasons why the fund gained so much traction is how it allows investors access to Bitcoin without going to Bitcoin exchanges, several of which have been hacked in recent years.

Pantera looks forward to further growth

The fund has expanded its portfolio into investing in other currencies like the highly controversial bitcoin cash or bcash, and also other virtual currencies (some recent that were minted via the vehicle of initial coin offerings and others have been hard forked) that the firm believes could rise over the course of time and provide similar returns.

While more than 150 hedge funds focused on virtual currencies have been created this year, starting one such fund in the air of 2013 does not seem like a walk in the park. That is one of the reasons why firms like Pantera and its leaders are able to receive significant returns and major cryptocurrency credit.

The post Hedge Fund Pantera Releases Returns of Over 25,000 Percent appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Co-Founder of Blocktower Capital Ari Paul Bet One Million Dollars On Bitcoin

Ari Paul and his million dollar bet on Bitcoin

The co-founder of Blocktower Capital and CIO, Ari Paul, thinks that it is possible that the price of the pioneer digital currency, Bitcoin can go to reaching the upper bound of $50k per coin.  He has made a couple of investments or bets with this confidence. He has apparently made a $1 million bet on the rise of bitcoin to at least $50,000, by the end of next year, December 2018.

The investor is seeking to capitalize on this potential by using certain investment tools and options to be able to participate in this gain. This is somewhat of an expected bet from someone of his caliber, due to the fact that he is part of a cryptocurrency hedge fund BlockTower Capital, and would have the know-how in seeing how and where the market will move. They were able to make this bet via the use of a broker named Ledger X, a broker that specializes in the cryptocurrency options.

What’s this bet all about? Well, the idea is that the hedge fund would go ahead and purchase these cryptocurrency options and will succeed if the price of bitcoin hits the number of $50,000 and goes past it by the end of December.

He commented:

One thing to understand with options: a deep out of the money call is not a bet that something *will* happen, it’s a bet that something *might* happen. Risk a little to win a lot.

If this is the case and bitcoin does hit and go past that precious number, the firm will be able to purchase 275 Bitcoins at the price of $50,000. If this does not happen, then they’ll have to move on and make another bet.

A million dollars sure is a lot to place on a bet, they’d have to be somewhat certain that the price of bitcoin could very well surpass $50,000, right? We’ll see next a couple of days after the next Christmas!

2017: The the year that marks the rise of the cryptofunds

Blocktower Capital is one of many firms that have risen to become hedge funds and cryptocurrency funds that have gone into this volatile cryptocurrency market being able to contribute to the space of cryptocurrencies, being a player in the growing market and benefitting significantly from it.

This firm has made a name for itself in the cryptoworld and continues to create a buzz with tweets like these:

“Imagine if refugees from Nazi Germany or Maoist China or Syria recently could take all their wealth with them when they start a new life elsewhere, with just a password in their head.

Most of the world faces the threat of wealth confiscation.  Corrupt politicians or judges confiscate wealth in Russia and China and others.  Then there’s demonetization in India, civil asset forfeiture in the US, capital controls in Argentina, South Korea, and elsewhere…”

There are various players in this market, and it may increase from 175 to more as we progress into the next year.

The post Co-Founder of Blocktower Capital Ari Paul Bet One Million Dollars On Bitcoin appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

tZERO Earns Over $100 Million From Their ICO

tZero, a subsidiary of Overstock.com, initiated its initial coin offering (ICO) on the 15th and has already had people invest for over $100 million, as per CEO Patrick Byrne.

According to Byrne, the tZero ICO is will only be raising a total of $250 million. They might raise the upper limit to $300 million if needed.  This initial coin offering is going to be structured a little differently in various regards, which makes it all the more interesting. First, the project is going to be opening up the first portion of its fundraiser to, what the company is calling, strategic purchasers, in which the company will be entering into Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFEs), these strategic purchasers are accredited investors. Then they will also have the fundraiser open to offshore investors as well.

The raise has attracted significant interest across the board, as it has drawn more than 1,500 people to open up their virtual wallets and invest, giving this particular ICO a lot of traction from the start, allowing them to raise the aforementioned $100 million in such a short timespan.

The CEO went as far as to note that he was fielding for offers from individual investors for $3 million and higher amounts for their single token allocations.

They are following regulations all throughout the offering and so, are not participating in tactics, or are at least, shying away from discussing tactics during the sale. He did note that if they were to go that route, they would be reserving them in a tiered manner starting with the first ten million sold. Then the next would be going to following $90 million. He did state that those investors who fall in the first three tiers would be receiving the bonuses if they were to go down that route.

The investors can also expect to have full information on how to be a part of the platform via their site, SAFTLaunch.com, the offering’s issuance portal.

More good news for the team

“There seems to be overwhelming demand, and we don’t need more than $250 million to do all the disruption we plan on doing,” Byrne shared after the launch of the ICO. “I wish we could make it for everybody.”

The “disruption” that Byrne referred to largely pertains to tZero’s business model and how it could change trading as we know it.

Byrne started with the same mindset in the way that he decided to introduce the company’s initial offering, not conventionally – as is expected from a company of its stature – but through an ICO.

ICOs get a bad name due to some of the process offerings turning out as being fraud. To add to their troubles, they are somewhat complicated for those people who are oblivious with the process. Due to this reason, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been cracking down on those ICOs which seem to be misleading or fraudulent to the investors.

However, Byrne maintains that he appreciates the recent crackdowns, comparing them to instances of people driving around “with stacks of stock certificates, selling to Grandma over the backyard fence” in the past. According to Byrne, some level of “paternalism” is necessary to ensure that everything stays transparent and is adapted for best-practices.

What are this ICO and Tzero about?

The coins offered in the ICO serve as tokens to use the tZERO trading mechanism.

The platform, in turn, has been developed with the aim to host future ICOs, trading, and short-selling. It aims to operate as a blockchain-based solution as an answer to the more traditional Wall Street exchange – ambitiously and potentially as an alternative to the NYSE. This could also be the “disruption” that Byrne was speaking of earlier.

Owners of the tokens obtained through the ICO will obtain a dividend-like revenue share from tZero in addition to the ability to use the token in the exchange for trading and shorting.

As per Byrne, some of the benefits of this hybrid-model over traditional exchanges are transparency through a distributed ledger and lower costs.

Initially, the platform is to trade its own tZERO token, but it plans to expand from there. This goes in line with Byrne’s vision as well, according to whom, tokens are the future of securities with ICOs replacing IPOs.

Byrne has also mentioned that tZERO is completely SEC compliant and aims to decrease the cost of transactions in this market by at least 75%, potentially reaching reductions of 90%. It would also contribute toward a disruption in the securities lending market, which is a vehicle that fuels short-selling and provides substantial revenues for traditional brokers.

Announcement to purchase a percentage of StockCross & Kennedy Cabot Acquisition

The CEO has also recently announced the intention of the tZERO to buy a small stake in a company called StockCross Financial Services, Inc., a DTC Clearing firm. The two groups involved have already started the process to begin the purchase by putting forth their LOI’s for the tZERO to buy about 24% of the clearing firm.

On the purchase, Byrne commented, “As we have told the world, we intend to leverage our expertise to develop a trading platform capable of trading security tokens, and we expect clearing capabilities to be central to this endeavor. Today, we take the first step toward integrating a clearing function into the tZERO ecosystem.”

He further noted that day marks “a culmination of a Herculean effort” between the tZERO team and the Gebbia companies to start a recreation of the old Wall Street. He also mentioned that this would a major step in bringing crypto capital markets to the world further adoption and growth.

tZERO has also signed an LOI for the smaller purchase of Kennedy Cabot Acqusition, LLC.

The post tZERO Earns Over $100 Million From Their ICO appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Predictive Analytics Company Augur Gives Updates On Their Reporting Contracts

Augur is a company that has the interesting idea of combining the magic of prediction markets with the power of a decentralized network to create a stunningly accurate forecasting tool – and the chance for real money trading profits.

The blockchain based startup has been steadily deploying developments and meeting their stated objectives.

The latest update has been sent out fairly recently in which they stated that they were able to receive a significant amount of their contract audits back over the course of a couple of weeks and they were able to make the necessary changes required after the reception. They altered their reporting contracts to meet standards and are now progressing onto other matters.

The next set of matters is for them to slow the pace of deployment during Christmas and then get back to work on the implementation of the required changes and fixes in their security audits. They feel that the fixes should not take an excessive amount of time and should be ready within a week for their next review.

The contract process is extensive and is a key part of their overall offering to their users so it is important that they are able to wrap this up as soon as possible. The overall corrections and reporting contracts will then be reviewed by their auditors and should be finalized over within the first few days of the new year.

Augur Node and UI

The Augur Node and UI is the next part of the focus and they are developing it on a regular basis. Interested users will be able to see a sort of live sneak peek of what the platform can look like via dev.augur.net. Being able to see active test nets is what users have waiting patiently for and so this is a welcome end of year present for many who have been following Augur from the start.

The company is also expecting to present a refined and polished white paper clarifying their vision and users can expect to take a look at it prior the launch of the platform.

Why Augur matters

The company is working on an exciting project to where they are bringing in an innovation to prediction markets. They want to be able to provide “stunningly” accurate forecasts on any topic. This key feature that they are bringing to the table can be of significant use to many in various markets and so Augur is being watched by many.

How exactly do they operate?

The prediction markets that Augur facilitates, allows for the powerful predictive data across industries. One is able to see what the probability of an event happening is by looking at the share price of the event, say one event is priced at .55, this means that the event has a 55% chance of taking place.

The application would tap into the wisdom of the crowd, being able to group together thoughts on a specific topic from many in the crowd thus allowing for more accurate predictions. This is already being done to a certain extent, see shares of stock on the New York Stock Exchange or anywhere else in the public market, most people believe that the public market has valued these stocks correctly, various people buy and sell depending on what they think that the stock is worth, and depending on these myriad decisions, the price of the stock stays up or goes down.

Augur is bringing a similar market to everything else allowing for the pricing in of the opinions of the many.

What makes people want to be right? They are making these decisions that would lead to trades with real money! These traders are then putting their money where their mouth is.

In other Augur related news

According to Bittrex, the app’s token, called REP, went to be more than $200 last week. On the other hand, CoinMarketCap shows that after starting below $50 in the same time frame, the price rose above $107and at the time of writing this, REP is trading at around $88.

While it’s certainly surprising to say the least, Augur has been known as a widely used prediction market app for a while now. It cannot be said for certain what – other than the trickle effect by improvements of other cryptocurrencies – could have contributed to the rise of REP in the last week or so.

Maybe, it could also be the fact that Augur continues to say what they will do and meets those expectations on a consistent basis.

About Augur

Augur is an open-source prediction market platform that uses decentralized network built on Ethereum. Its protocol is a set of smart contracts which exist on the Ethereum blockchain.

According to Wikipedia, the startup was founded in 2014 by Jack Peterson and Joey Krug. The first working version of Augur, Augur Alpha, was published to the Ethereum test network in June 2015.

Afterwards, the company worked towards initiating a crowdsale including the distribution of their REP tokens, which ended its run successfully in October 2015 after running for a period of 45 days.

The crowdsale gained a very positive response from investors, raising more than $5.2 million. The successful run placed the Augur Project among the top 50 most successful crowdfunding campaigns of all time, as of today.

The post Predictive Analytics Company Augur Gives Updates On Their Reporting Contracts appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

An Internet Solutions Company and Their Plan to Allow People to Share Their Wi-Fi

Open Garden, an internet solutions company, launched its mesh networking platform 5 years ago.

A San Francisco, California based company called Open Garden, was founded in the year of 2011, it works to develop a free, closed source mobile application called Firechat and participated as an internet solutions company at a Tech Crunch Conference five years ago.

Ever since that time, the startup has been growing its Firechat application, which serves as an offline messaging service. Bolstered by the growth in this Firechat application, they are now pursuing an even more ambitious goal. The goal of simplifying the lives of their consumers by making it simple and easy for their potential users to give the gift of their internet connection to those who are in their local area. The project is primarily based on the android market and would allow for many to share their Wi-Fi.

It is certainly a rather ambitious project, yet the leaders of the project, from the CEO and others involved are certain that they will find success.

The Chief Executive Officer, Paul Hainsworth, noted:

“The concept of a decentralized ISP is entirely new. The traditional, centralized ISP is a one-to-many relationship between provider and customer. A decentralized ISP is the combination of millions of individual people, companies, and products creating a new kind of network. These millions of people sharing their internet are ISPs, tiny or large, and in aggregate they form a decentralized ISP.”

What?! Stay away from my internet connection!

Well, it seems like the startup knew you would say that. Which is why, in order to encourage people to share their internet, the company is planning to go forward with the deployment of its own ETH-based token – called OG – in the first quarter of 2018.

The company explains that since most people do not use the bandwidth cap of their broadband service completely, what’s the harm in sharing access with others, especially when it provides you with the ability to earn some cryptocurrency for your generosity?

Furthermore, the startup maintains that this is a brand new idea, there are other companies such as ( Fon  ) who have provided for the aspect of  Wi-Fi sharing without the implementation of cryptocurrencies like ETH and mess network innovations. However, it can be argued that most have only been able to do so with a minimum level of success, most probably because not many people want to share their internet access in the first place.

It’s quite an ambitious plan

Judging by the way how Open Garden wants the concept to work, it would require quite a few people to participate in the concept to actually be tangible and useful.

They plan to utilize its FireChat app to spread the word about this initiative.

As per the company, it currently has over 5 million registered users, which will primarily form the basis for seeding this network. In the future, Open Garden plans to develop apps for iOS, Mac, Windows and set-top streaming boxes.

Furthermore, the company also explains that they will have their opensource project, Project Open Garden, to help developers enable and build their token into their own software and hardware solutions.

“OG can be used by existing WiFi infrastructure owners – such as municipal WiFi, shopping malls, stadiums, airports, restaurants, and small businesses – to monetize their existing capital investment,” an Open Garden representative explained.

Why the use of cryptocurrency?

To this, Hainsworth explained that this step of implementation of the cryptocurrency is being taken because the company wants their regular consumers to be able to buy internet access even if they do not understand the concept of blockchain or cryptocurrencies.

“By issuing our own token, instead of just using Bitcoin or Ethereum, we can give away a very large percentage of the total tokens (or coins) in our economy to participants.”

Since this is a network and it needs more users to become a long-term viable product, they also believe that cryptocurrencies will play a large role in being able boos adoption and long-term user retention.

“Incentives work at an individual level. Early adopters can earn additional bonus OG for being first to market, for example,” he concluded.

Would this work?

Recently, there were reports of a meeting of tech individuals in New York, in which the adaptation of a mesh network was discussed at a larger level in order to find a solution to the repeal of Net Neutrality through the usage of a decentralized network that is not controlled by any ISP.

However, that concept was slightly different than what is being proposed by Open Garden. It remains to be seen which of these recent suggestions could go on to become widely adopted by users and if the incentivizing proposition is enough for people to share their internet with others in public spaces.

The post An Internet Solutions Company and Their Plan to Allow People to Share Their Wi-Fi appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Will South Korea Create Their Own Crypytocurrency?

South Korea may ponder their own state-backed cryptocurrency as members from their well respected academic institutions are researching and suggesting their central bank implements their own fiat backed cryptocurrency. The researchers believe that this would help to bring much-needed improvements to their financial sector.

They are urging the Bank of Korea to look into the benefits of issuing digital tokens of the traditional currency via the use of the blockchain to be able to streamline aspects of the system and gain the additional improvements of saved costs, faster payments and greatly increased transparency. All of these aspects add up to paving a way for a potential renaissance in the field of finance.

One of the researchers noted that being able to incorporate this technology would help to improve the accounting records and help to have a preventative defense against attacks that occur in the cyberspace.

They have also gone on to note that the central bank of Korea is far behind in its progress in this cryptocurrency area and should take steps to accelerate its knowledge acquisition, awareness and eventual deployment of the crypto-based Korean won.

These academics are convinced that being able to have the central bank issue their version of a state-based cryptocurrency would allow for changing the industry of banking in their country.

South Korea is not the only one that has been looking into this as others have mentioned a potential move in the past as well, such as the United States, Israel, Russia, and China. China has already taken steps to test out the blockchain and has completed a successful trial.

This would not be a surprising move for the country, if it were to take place due to the fact that the private markets in the country have been involved, rather, heavily in the virtual currency ecosystem, the private market in South Korea could be considered as one of the most significant players on a global scale.

The Government and contemplation of regulation in crypto

The country has already said no to the launch of initial coin offerings in South Korea because they felt that there were a variety of issues that could arise if it were left to continue and develop and so, they have banned it. The government of the country has stayed rather neutral when it comes to regulation of cryptocurrencies in general but their financial regulator finally issued their statements within this month, stating that they do not intend to impose regulations at this time.

“All we can do is to warn people as we don’t see virtual currencies as actual types of currency, meaning that we cannot step up regulation for now.” Choe Heung-Sik, Governor of South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, stated in a press conference.

The South Korean regulator thinks that there isn’t any reason to as Bitcoin does not pose any threats and are not legal tender and don’t come close to being similar to fiat in the country as of yet. Governments are making their own decisions on how to label virtual currencies, looking at it as financial commodities or actual currencies that can compete with fiat.

“Though we are monitoring the practice of cryptocurrency trading, we don’t have plans right now to directly supervise exchanges,” Choe elaborated on the FSS’ stance on cryptocurrencies. “Supervision will come only after the legal recognition of digital tokens as a legitimate currency.” He added.

The FSS had devised a set of regulations last week that pertained to the trading of cryptocurrencies in the country. Although not as strict as the regulations that are generally associated with conventional currency, the set of rules included the requirement of banks to verify the identification of account holders when creating new virtual currency accounts for cryptocurrency trades.

Even so, just as other nations are doing, South Korea is devising ways to make sure that they do not miss out on their piece of the crypto pie and are making certain to bring home capital gains.

The post Will South Korea Create Their Own Crypytocurrency? appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.

Blockchain-based Casino Dragon Inc. Extends the Length of Their Pre-ICO

Dragon Inc., a technology company that aims to fortify the casino gaming sector with blockchain technology, launched its Pre-ICO (Initial Coin Offering) on December 8.

It was a subscription round of initial funding that was aimed at allowing the general public to buy the company’s cryptocurrency. The Pre-ICO was scheduled to end on December 15 and is being dubbed as the world’s largest ICO to date.

The company, who notes that it seeks to bring gaming into the 21st century by providing a decentralized currency for casino players, ran into a slight problem as of late.

ICO investors and contributors that were interested in the offering were not able to transfer their Bitcoins and Ethereum towards the Pre-ICO because of what is being called to as an extreme backlog on both of the cryptocurrencies’ networks.

Taking these reasons into account, Dragon Inc. had initially looked into the possibility of postponing the start of the Pre-ICO; however, it has now gone forward with having the Pre-ICO last for another 2 weeks, until the date of  December 31, 2017. Dragon Inc has stated that they’ve done this due to the fact that they believe it would allow for fairness to all potential investors in each of the fundraising rounds. The company also understands that being able to extend the raise would also allow for the maximum intake of funds in a reasonable manner.

“We respect the community because we promised that we were going to launch on December 8, 2017,” stated Chris Ahmad, CEO of Dragon Inc. “These market conditions are beyond our control, so we decided to extend the period of the Pre-ICO until the end of December to allow the community to take part in the Pre- ICO.“

However, even with these various barriers that are present in the blockchain environment, they have still seen, what can be considered as substantial interest, over the course of their first weekend. They were able to bring in, what equated to more than million in Bitcoin, ETH, and dollars in the first two days of their launch, not necessarily a good start to being the “world’s largest ICO” but still not a number than one can scoff at.

 Dragon Inc. Operations

Dragon Inc. provides for the facilitation of  VIP gamers with VIP casino rooms called “junkets”. These global rooms provide the players with a private area to engage in their gambling activities, due to legal issues, funds are also transferred in and out via agents of these rooms. In the global world of casinos, junkets are a pivotal component, due to the fact that they are able to rake in a significant portion of revenues, bringing in more than 49% of revenues.

The company will be specializing in bringing the innovation of blockchain to the junket component, which will help to streamline casino related operations by deploying their own cryptocurrencies. This way, the operator does not have to deal with financial hassles as well as being able to pass this better experience on to the consumer, saving the casino players money and time in minimizing fees overall.

The company will be deploying their first batch of junkets and casinos in January of 2018 and is well on their way to being able to have the funds to do so, as they have raised more $260 million, already, in private raises.

They plan on opening in Macau in Q1 of 2018.

The post Blockchain-based Casino Dragon Inc. Extends the Length of Their Pre-ICO appeared first on Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies & Bitcoin - bitGuru.