Where To Store NEO? NEO Hardware Wallet Storage Now Available

We last reported on this back in October 2017 and at the time there were no available methods for storing NEO in a hardware wallet. 

Where to Store NEO?

Fortunately though, developers have been working hard and have now integrated NEO storage onto the Ledger Nano S! It’s good news for those who already own the hardware wallet, however excessive demand has caused a backlog of orders and shipping isn’t available until March!

When NEO is selected on the Nano S, a message displaying ‘wake up NEO’ was as far as functionality went. Now though you can download the usable wallet and store your NEO securely on your Nano S!

As you’ll already be aware if you have a Nano S already, you must download separate apps for it for each cryptocurrency you want to store. The client is ran through your computer, with the private keys being stored on the device. Now you can download the NEO client and run it with your device.

There’s a handy guide on the Ledger website – Click Here

This allows you to store NEO, GAS and any NEP 5 ICO tokens that you may have invested in. NEO Hardware Wallet support has long been anticipated and it’s a relief for investors.

Ledger recently announced that they raised $75 Million in funding to develop their operations. They’ll be using the funding to increase the product range, speed up orders and make more devices for their customers. More developments will soon be coming and the wallet will also soon be supporting more cryptocurrencies as time goes on.

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IQeon is ‘Heads Up’: ICO Starts Today! (30th Jan)

After two preICOs that were a huge success for IQeon, the team is getting closer to the main token crowdsale. IQeon managed to raise the target sum during their first preICO ($1,165,000.00) and even closed it a couple of days before the official closing day. Many inquiries for investment brought to life the additional preICO, which was very flourishing as well.

That’s not a secret why the project is getting so much attention and is capable of getting the profound investment from institutions and individuals. IQeon is a revolutionary platform where players could earn on their gaming achievements and organize PvP bets on literally everything, starting from challenges on “I dare to..” and ending with bets on the results of any game existing on the Internet. This particular option is provided by the open API of IQeon gaming ecosystem.

The Blockchain technology backing up IQeon guarantees the protection and safety of the cryptowallet integrated into the personal account of each player. The IQN stored there could be used in any game hosted by the platform and exchanged into any other cryptocurrency via the inbuilt exchanger.

The Main Round of IQeon ICO starts on January 30 and lasts until March 13, 2018. The number of tokens issued for sale is 6.5M and the token exchange rate is 325 IQN for 1 ETH. IQN could be bought with ETH and BTC.

IQeon management team provides the flexible system of discount during the Main Round of ICO.

January 30, bonus is 30%

January 31-February 7, bonus is 25%

February 8-15, bonus is 20%

February 16-23, bonus is 15%

February 24-March 3, bonus is 10%

March 4-13, bonus is 5%

IQeon team is doing all that is humanly possible to make the functionality claimed in the roadmap be introduced as soon as possible. At the same time, IQeon project is actively promoted at conferences worldwide (Moscow, Great Britain, Thailand, etc.).

Everyone is welcomed to participate in the main token crowdsale! For more details, visit IQeon official website or stay connected through social network channels.

Tartu mnt 83-205, Tallinn,
Estonia, Harju maakond,
10115
marketing@iqeon.io

support@iqeon.io
https://iqeon.io

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Ecofin to Hold Discussion About Cryptocurrencies

“We want Europe to embrace the opportunities of blockchain, the technology underlying cryptocurrencies. But to do so, we must be vigilant and prevent cryptocurrencies from becoming a token for unlawful behavior.”

These comments came from Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice President of Europe’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin), while speaking at a press conference in Belgium.

Dombrovskis had been addressing a few points of concern that Ecofin currently wants to bring to the table for discussion, one critical topic of concern seems to be the advent of cryptocurrencies and the effect they’ve had on the world in general.

Dombrovskis mentioned that a few suggestions had been made on EU’s treatment of cryptocurrencies in the past, some of which, still need to be discussed in a detailed manner. He further stated that he had directed European Supervisory Authorities to update their warnings with cryptocurrencies, something that will be followed up and will result in tangible actions shortly.

He also referred to the updated set of regulations that were passed last month by the European Union (EU) legislators, which were focused on eliminating anonymous transactions that cryptocurrency traders have been able to maintain so far.

The new regulations require cryptocurrency exchanges to put know your customer (KYC) measures into effect to end anonymous transactions. This move had been taken so the relevant authorities could have all vital information on hand in case of any suspicious activity.

Speaking further on these regulations, Dombrovskis mentioned that they would result in “less anonymity and more traceability.”

As the passed regulations need to be formally adopted by European legislators within 18 months to go into effect, Dombrovskis urged the relevant personnel to “transpose the new rules” as soon as possible.

He also mentioned that the far-reaching implications of cryptocurrencies have the potential for “ramifications” on various institutions and areas, which also includes central banks of member nations.

Dombrovskis concluded:

“That’s why I intend to bring together key authorities and the private sector in a high level roundtable very shortly to assess the longer term situation beyond the current market trends.” 

Possible effects that this could have on cryptocurrencies

The intention from Dombrovskis to bring authorities together for a detailed discussion comes in the midst of global calls for regulations on cryptocurrencies. For instance, France is supposed to bring up this topic during the G20 Summit in Argentina this year.

Furthermore, while some countries like South Korea have been reasonable in regulating cryptocurrencies, others have taken a more stern approach towards the regulatory procedure.

However, with the growing reach of cryptocurrencies and the possibility of them growing into something more than digital tokens of niche, peer-to-peer transactions, calls for regulations are inevitable even if not justifiable in some cases.

Keeping all of this in mind, it will not be a surprise if the next major Ecofin meeting does discuss cryptocurrencies extensively.

What is Ecofin?

Ecofin is Europe’s council of member nations’ economics and finance ministers. It also involves European Commissioners as per their relevance.

In addition to preparing the EU budget, the council takes care of important EU policies pertaining to matters such as Euro’s legal aspects, as well as EU economics, taxation, financial markets and economic relations with non-EU nations.

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Thanks to Bitcoin 50 Cent Is More Than $8 Million Richer Than He Was Before

It seems like everyone had forgotten about the Bitcoin payments that 50 Cent – whose real name is Curtis Jackson – had accepted in 2014 for his album “Animal Ambition.”

And the news outlets are not to be blamed for it either, as 50 Cent had never talked about that little incident himself until the clever folks at TMZ took a refresher in history and put 2 and two together.

Animal ambition pays off

In what, almost everyone from the conventional industry saw as a move for publicity and not financial acumen at the time, 50 Cent had announced around the release of Animal Ambition that he will be partnering with payment processor BitPay to accept the then-obscure payment method.

The album did receive Bitcoin in payments through this payment method, amounting to 700 Bitcoin in total. As Bitcoin had been trading somewhere around $650 at the time, the total sales in Bitcoin valued over $400,000.

While people did not pay any attention to it before this, when the amount raised in Bitcoin was revisited, it came up to be more than $8 Million according to the cryptocurrency’s current value.

The news has since blown up and has been covered by various media outlets throughout the world, with 50 Cent himself taking part in the discussion.

50 Cent Comments on the news

Soon after the news went viral, 50 Cent decided to weigh in on it through his Instagram account.

He recently shared a video of an old interview from Late Night with Seth Meyers, where he was asked about his decision to accept Bitcoin for his album.

“You have always been ahead of the curve in social media and stuff like this,” Meyers had asked 50 Cent in the interview. “For your last album, you actually accepted Bitcoin.”

“Yeah, yeah… you know… all money is money.” 50 Cent had replied.

The video clip was shared along with 50 Cent’s recent comments stating “All moneys is good money over here.”

It does seem that 50 Cent has both luck and the smartness of his decisions working in his favor so far. While the Bitcoin decision had been mixed with luck and a leap of faith, the rapper’s other decision to turn an actor recently paid off with his most receive movie “Den of Thieves,” which is surpassing box office expectations.

While the movie has received mixed reviews from critics, it is doing well by its audience and ended up in the top three in the domestic box office.

Bitcoin can benefit from the news, of course

While the news has generated quite a buzz for 50 Cent around the release of his new movie, it has also gotten mainstream media’s attention towards Bitcoin once more. It will not be a surprise if Google Trends show Bitcoin as one of the top global searches once again.

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Expert Says The Best Time to Invest in Bitcoin Is Now

Brian Kelly, the same man who had been accused of plugging Ripple on CNBC by demonstrating its purchase process, recently stated that people should look into buying more Bitcoin while its value allows it to be reachable to potential investors.

Bitcoin’s value is currently dancing around $10,000 to $11,000, which is almost a 50 percent drop from its high in December where it had reached $20,000 at one point.

What did Kelly have to say?

Apart from being in the news about that one Ripple segment, Kelly is also known for being a proficient investment expert and the founder and CEO of BK Capital Management, a digital asset investment firm.

Speaking on CNBC, Kelly mentioned the current negativity and nervousness that has been making rounds across the cryptocurrency industry about Bitcoin and its decreasing value this month.

He stated that despite everyone suggesting that “bitcoin is dead,” this is the opportunity for investors to invest in the cryptocurrency.

“Now’s the time you start looking at it, on the buy side,” Kelly said.

The “hand-off” period

Kelly also mentioned that even with the recent situation that has been developing in China and South Korea, cryptocurrency is currently going through a “hand-off” process where it is going from the Asian traders to the ones in Europe, U.S., and Japan, only to come back to the first region in the circle again.

China is currently in the process of taking stricter measures to reportedly achieve its objective of eradicating cryptocurrency trading from the country altogether. South Korea, on the other hand, recently released a regulatory plan to end the anonymity on cryptocurrency transactions, but is otherwise not in the process of banning the exchanges or trading by any means – after weeks of uncertainty on the situation.

Kelly further mentioned that this is most certainly “not the end of Bitcoin,” but is the other way around. He alluded that it is an excellent situation to be in for investors who want to buy Bitcoin, instead of where the cryptocurrency’s value is so high that it is out of reach and poses a danger to its new investors, due to its volatile prices.

He mentioned that while “everyone is running around being all excited” whenever Bitcoin reaches the value around $20,000, that is the time when people need to be vigilant about their investments and be “a little cautious.”

Kelly also shared a few tips for investors who are interested in Bitcoin, starting by mentioning that since “this is the Internet in 1995,” it is prone to fluctuations and risks.

He advised investors to only put in around 10 percent of their total investment budget into Bitcoin, as that way, even if losses incur due to fluctuation, they would be able to manage them easily.

He also suggested the investors HODL onto their Bitcoins once they have them, and not to sell them right away whenever the value starts going up again. He explained that once Bitcoin prices start going up again, chances are that it will gain traction once more.

Furthermore, he mentioned for investors to have a stable stance about Bitcoin and not drop it if the price fluctuates by 50 percent. He described that daily fluctuations are normal in this asset class and thus, while the price can drop that much in a single day, it can very well go back up and even higher the next day. The key is not to be panicked.

It sounds like Kelly might be on the way to redeem himself in the eyes of Bitcoin supporters, after all.

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The Canadian Government is Studying Ethereum and Smart Contracts

Paul Krugman can say what he wants about the dubious utility of blockchain, but it does not seem to stop the technology from being noticed at the highest levels of research.

In a recent announcement, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) shared its initiative to study blockchain in a specific capacity.

As the Government of Canada’s leading research organization, NRC has been at the forefront of analyzing some of the world’s breakthrough technologies and their effective usage in the past. Continuing from that tradition, it will now run a “live-trial” of Ethereum through its Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP).

The organization aims to run the trial not for cryptocurrencies but for one of the other innovative concepts that the platform brings to the table, which as you might have guessed by now, is the function of smart contracts.

What will be researched in smart contracts?

Since the very function of blockchain is built upon sharing data in the fastest manner possible while also ensuring that it remains transparent, secure, and safe from any alteration, the government has the notion that it can be used for drafting, storing, and sharing government contracts more efficiently.

The project is being led by the NRC IRAP with a Canadian blockchain platform business by the name of Bitaccess joining in as a research partner. The project will obtain funding from a government program.

Through the collective minds and efforts of these entities, the project is already live. The NRC IRAP is currently working on the Ethereum blockchain where it is drafting, storing and updating “contribution agreements” to see how simple the process will be for real-world usage and how secure the stored information is afterward.

This is just the start

However, the project is not only limited towards learning the effectiveness of smart contracts in government agreements. It also aims to devise if the smart contracts can be applied to other utilities that may be beneficial to the government.

The NRC aims to collect valuable information and insight through this experiment and hopes that it will be able to develop and present beneficial ways to use this revolutionary technology of blockchain to assure transparency in the government and its related bodies.

How beneficial is this going to be for the blockchain community?

Needless to say, it is very positive news.

Almost everyone from the blockchain and cryptocurrency community is aware of the benefits that smart contracts offer to blockchain users. They are not just limited to one capacity and can be adapted to various settings. Similar to blockchain, their potential is virtually limitless.

The NRC IRAP, in this situation, is very capable. It is just a matter of time before the organization – like almost everyone else who tested blockchain before this – announces that it is adopting blockchain for good.

As the process is just beginning and there is much more work to be done in this regard, we will be staying up to date and providing further news as it comes about.

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UN Launches Blockchain-Based Climate Chain Coalition

The latest institution to accept blockchain as a potential solution for present problems is the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Secretariat, which recently announced the formation of a Climate Chain Coalition (CCC)  focusing on blockchain based systems for various functions on addressing climate change.

The potential of blockchain technology is not just limited to cryptocurrencies or the financial sector, and that is an idea now being accepted throughout the world.

Since blockchain and its distributed ledger technology (DLT) offer endless possibilities of data sharing solutions with fast, efficient, and secure processes throughout a blockchain network, the CCC will be researching this technology and its use cases for climate change control activities in an extensive manner.

The idea for CCC was developed and reached consensus by a 25-member team of global organizations on the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement.

The CCC initiative is led by Massamba Thioye for research and development of blockchain’s usage for climate change control.

Thioye said in a statement:

“The UN Climate Change secretariat recognizes the potential of blockchain technology to contribute to enhanced climate action and sustainability.”

Through the CCC program, the stakeholders plan to enhance the monitoring, verification, and reporting of climate change activities in an efficient manner, this way, the relevant information could be shared globally without any delay or risk of tampering.

Due to the objectives mentioned above, the initiative has confidence that the program would allow relevant authorities to take timely actions and measures on reported instances.

Charter goals

The UN Climate Change secretariat also developed a charter of principle and values for the CCC and its members to follow.

This charter was presented to maintain organizational best practices through the initiative.

Key points of the charter include resolutions for upholding the Paris Agreement and its long-term goals, advancement of blockchain research for climate change control, establishing and maintaining technological standards, resolution of challenges present within the technology and contribution for socio-economic responsibilities.

Since it is a global and open initiative, the CCC invites any interested parties to apply for its membership. The CCC currently holds around 35 member organizations from across the world and hopes that more would join in the future to continue to work toward solutions.

 One of many recent achievements of the blockchain technology

The blockchain technology has recently been making waves regarding adoption and broader acceptability.

Just this month, blockchain technology has been associated with multiple global initiatives such as IBM and Maersk’s collaboration on global shipping solutions, and Qtum’s multiple cross-country partnerships in China.

Even people who sometimes speak against cryptocurrencies do not deny the effectiveness of blockchain, and that is one of the major reasons why the technology is so revered now.

With initiatives such as this one, the exposure that blockchain gets will only keep increasing in the future, and it will truly prove to be the equivalent to the internet regarding world-changing technology.

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