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Steven Cavan
Cryptocurrency and Blockchain News Roundup - 02.12.17
Obviously no one person can keep up with all the news coming out of the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain right now. But I like to make as many observations of news data events and try to connect the dots to spot trajectories about where it"s all headed. Here"s a few happenings from some recent perusals of news sites.
First of all, when you start seeing entities, public and private, going into research on crypto and blockchain, you know that (a) they think it isn"t going away and (b) it might hold some answers for various problems. Very few people are poo-pooing this new technology now. Now, they"re hoping they haven"t been too late to catch the opportunity train.
Here"s some articles that illustrate that:
Illinois Legislator Calls for Blockchain Working Group
International Securities Regulators Publish Blockchain Research
Ethereum Job Market Colony Enters Beta
Like a rain collector in the dessert... when this technology starts to spawn its own job sites...that"s good.
Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF Offering Expands to $100 Million
It"s pretty remarkable when a technology spawns it"s own brand of investment product.
Qiwi"s CEO Will Head Up Russia"s Distributed Ledger Efforts
In Russia"s case, it"s likely the government will control it. But still it"s interesting that anybody there is even looking at it. Of course developing countries have more motivation to be innovative (usually).
You Can Now Bet Bitcoin on Whether the Winklevoss ETF Will Go Live
I"ll tell you what this represent...i.e. the degree to which this technology is permeating other areas of society.
The Swedish Telecom That Bought KnC is Now Mining Bitcoin
And don"t forget that companies have, in the past, seen greater opportunities in new markets than their old markets and made switches. In the MLM industry, NSA (water filtration systems) changing their name to "JuicePlus" was one example. I wouldn"t be surprised to see financial firms starting to mine digital currency.
India"s Biggest Stock Exchange is Testing Blockchain KYC
India is another country where I think the government will keep a firm leash on cryptocoin. They"ll have too due to the mass of basically illiterate people who live there. But of course this will also serve as a testing ground for make it "user friendly".
Accenture Unveils Hardware Solution for Blockchain Private Keys
I"ve heard the market for hardware type wallets is going to be huge. John McAffee thinks so.
The Philippines Just Released New Rules for Bitcoin Exchanges
The Philippines, because of it"s population and the fact that Filipinos work everywhere in the world, will be an interesting market to watch develop.
That"s enough articles and brilliant insight for now. Feel free to let me know if you like the Drudge-like approach. I could have rehased the article and tried to make it seem like I"m smarter than I am. But the most important thing isn"t me but you...i.e. that you get the news.
(p.s. In case you"re interested, I used the Firefox extension called "Copy as HTML" to grab these headlines. I like it.)
Steven Cavan
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SUCCESS = MINDSET + LEARN + APPLY + TEACH
Steven Cavan
Reports of a ‘closed-doors’ meeting surfaced yesterday, one wherein the PBOC was said to have met with representatives of Chinese bitcoin exchanges. While details were scarce at the time, the Beijing branch of China’s central bank has shed further light into the private meeting and its participants.
Having previously inspected and conducted on-site checks of Beijing-based exchanges Huobi and OkCoin, PBOC Beijing revealed that similar talks were held with the heads of 9 bitcoin exchanges.
Today Huobi and OkCoin Exchanges suspended Bitcoin withdrawals for a month which caused a crash ending what had been a rising market. One of the problems with Bitcoin is that China also is the home of the majority of bitcoin miners and can wave a knock on effect on the market. Bitcoin has a major latency problem maybe this might help it catchup.
Yuan deposits and withdrawals are not affected, the exchanges said.
Markets had been hovering around $1,063 when the news broke, though this has now changed as the market seeks to price in the news.
According to the CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), prices fell as much as $80, hitting a low of $958.56. BPI data shows that prices had previously hit a high of $1,077.76 earlier today.
At press time, bitcoin prices are at an average of $988.
CNY-denominated markets were down more than 13% from their peak on the news at one point, according to the BPI, falling from a high of ¥7,598.92 to an average of ¥6,755.52.
However, the price was up 5% on the day at press time, indicating traders were perhaps viewing the news as a buying opportunity.
So far, market observers appear to be reacting with a mixture of surprise and concern.
David Ogden
Entrepreneur
Steven Cavan
In May of 2010, someone on a Bitcoin forum by the name of Lazlo claimed to have bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. It was the first time anyone had purchased anything with the new digital currency, which at that time was valued at practically nothing.
Today, the cryptocurrency market is worth nearly $19 billion and those 10,000 bitcoins would be worth more than $10 million. Most of the cryptocurrency market is in Bitcoin, followed by Ether, the currency used by the smart contract platform Ethereum. Now tech giants, like Microsoft, IBM and Amazon, as well as major Wall Street banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, are investing in blockchain technology, the underlying class of technology that started with Bitcoin. Infosys, TCS, HCL, and Accenture are working on blockchain-based products for banks as well.
With the new year, everyone is wondering what’s to come in the next chapter. Based on my work in the field, here are five predictions on major trends in cryptocurrencies for 2017.
Investment funds will look to invest in cryptocurrencies
As an asset class, cryptocurrencies are tough to ignore. As I write this, Bitcoin is trading at just over $1,000. Hedge funds and venture capital firms will look for more ways to tap into the cryptocurrency market. Doing so will remove some of the social stigma around cryptocurrencies—mainly due to Bitcoin’s history of use on the dark markets—and popularize investment in cryptocurrencies.
Global currency disorders are on the rise: Think of what’s happening in India, where the government recently scrapped 86 percent of cash in circulation, and in Venezuela, where currency is so devalued people now need to carry stacks of cash just to buy food. As a result, many retail investors are turning their attention to digital currencies, as well. Cryptocurrencies are free from government control. Governments can’t easily call in bitcoins or halt their movement across international borders without taking drastic actions.
Financial institutions, bound by charters that describe the types of investments they can embark upon, have had few means of putting their money into bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies. But in 2017, we’ll see a greater push towards a diversity of cryptocurrencies as investments, and ETFs, hedge funds, and derivatives will start to act as conduits for institutions to gain exposure and get into the cryptocurrency game.
Private blockchains will start feeling the burn
Private blockchains (like the Hyperledger project from the Linux Foundation, R3CEV’s Corda, and the Gem Health network) will start to feel real friction. To date, private blockchains have gotten the benefit of the doubt, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in funding with little to show for it in production. Many of their projects are not terribly innovative, and haven’t been subjected to the same rigorous review as more public projects.
Greater scrutiny from analysts, well-informed media, and investors will put some much-needed cold water on private blockchains in 2017.
Bitcoin will see SegWit introduction
Despite the enormous technological and political difficulties involved in upgrading Bitcoin, Bitcoin’s core developers have finally introduced Segregated Witness to the network. The benefits of SegWit are clear: a higher transaction throughput without altering the block size, no transaction malleability and faster block validation. SegWit also makes it easier to develop better wallet software and permits off-chain transactions on the Lightning Network, a protocol for scaling and speeding up blockchains.<
There are no clear downsides to this upgrade, but it’s been taken hostage in the political battle over block size. Some mining pools are refusing to switch to SegWit, holding out for a block size increase instead, which does involve trade-offs. However, the fight seems to be running out of steam, which bodes well for SegWit.
Bitcoin usage will not change significantly
The price of Bitcoin will continue to rise due to increased demand from investors but usage—that is, how many people are using it to actually buy and sell things in the open market—will not change substantially. Arguably the biggest application for Bitcoin over the last few weeks has been as a tool for capital flight. In China, for instance, investors are buying bitcoins as part of a rush to convert their RMB into currencies that aren’t losing value. This means the currency won’t necessarily be trading hands much. Instead people will be holding on to it as a hedge or using it to get money out of their countries.
Exchanges will become a source of scrutiny
Regulators will keep a light touch on the technologies behind cryptocurrencies, but they will look more closely at exchanges, which is where traditional banking meets the new world of cryptocurrencies.
While exchanges are an excellent resource, allowing people to conveniently buy and sell digital currencies with ease, they also centralize risk. This makes them a virtual honeypot for hacks and thefts. So increasingly we will see governments stepping in to oversee how they operate with an eye on consumer protection. Some regulation will include new ways to confirm identities and block money laundering—and in extreme cases, block exchanges all together. Take the case of Colbitex, the first bitcoin exchange in Colombia, which the Colombian government closed down in August, claiming bitcoin was not real money and therefore unregulated.
Over a relatively short amount of time, we’ve watched cryptocurrencies evolve from relative obscurity to a point where governments and financial institutions are taking it seriously and making huge investments in blockchain technologies for their own use. Through 2017, we’ll see that evolution continue as serious blockchain platforms begin to emerge and people begin using cryptocurrencies, not just for capital flight and a hedge against hyperinflation, but for real day to day trading—and we’re not just talking pizza here.
Bryan Tuck
Partner
Markethive Inc.
(231) 487-2032
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Originally published at www.techcrunch.com - Jan 23, 2017 by Kathleen Breitman
Steven Cavan
A lot of individuals have fallen victim to cryptocurrency scams by investing in what they thought were real and genuine cryptocurrencies. Despite several campaigns by enthusiasts of already proven cryptocurrencies, altcoin vendors and investors have insisted on the genuineness of their preferred coins.
Popularity and followership are definitely not among the properties that qualify a given entity as a real cryptocurrency. As a matter of fact, these characteristics reveal the extent to which these altcoins can be negatively rated at their levels of scam.
Lead Consultant at One27 Global Consult, Solomon Barnabas tells Cointelegraph about his ordeal at the hands of vendors of scam coins.
Barnabas says that such coin vendors always sold more referral programs to unsuspecting members with claims that the crowdfunding is necessary for adoption. This he said has caused him a lot of losses both in cash and credibility.
Barnabas says:
“The problem with such programs is that they do not only end up with losing your money, they mess up your relationship with friends and loved ones. The people that you refer to most from these programs are predominantly those who join because they trust and believe in you. Imagine having to struggle to rebuild a reputation that was built over almost a lifetime.”
Angelina Lazar, a rogue economist, ideologue and cryptocurrency revolutionary, advises anyone who intends to join a company that acquires or invests in any altcoin, to first seriously research what the cryptocurrency is, then study all the aspects of the coin itself. For example, such self-education has been made available and affordable by institutions such as Nexxus University.
For Angelina Lazar, OneCoin takes the day as the current number one scam coin in the world. Lazar, who has become popular for her war on OneCoin, tells Cointelegraph that she is expecting conclusive information on OneCoin’s dealings within the next month.
This is after, what she refers to as, a nasty war between her camp and that of OneCoin. According to Lazar, her camp succeeded in getting all of OneCoin’s bank accounts shut down and even China"s UnionPay is not interested in dealing with them anymore.
One common position adopted by the propagandists of OneCoin in recent times is the claim that OneCoin is not a cryptocurrency yet. This argument always seems to arise as soon as they realize that their product does not possess the fundamental characteristics of a genuine cryptocurrency. How these followers tend to pursue the cause of OneCoin like a religion is a development that is becoming a subject of keen interest.
To this effect, Lazar points out that the leaders at OneCoin have not relented in making efforts to convince their followers around the world that they are now going public.
She explains to Cointelegraph:
“Which exchange on the planet besides Nibiru would take that company public when their whole management team is being investigated and their CEO is both on bail and on probation simultaneously. That"s two different cases in two different countries, mind you. And when they have not one bank account in their name and even all their tertiary accounts which they used for money-laundering in various other names were all shut down as well?”
Second is S-Coin (Coinspace). Packages for S-Coin range up to 12,000 euros. Lazar tells Cointelegraph that this is yet another pyramid scheme with, as she believes, an unsustainable compensation plan, just like OneCoin.
Another characteristic of S-Coin which resembles that of OneCoin is the promise of hope. The Coinspace community run what could be easily referred to as a pyramid scheme with the promise of releasing a cryptocurrency in the future. One major promise of theirs that raises some suspicion is the act of attaching a price of one Euro to the said cryptocurrency. At this point, the question of attaching value to an entity without the basic science of supply and demand comes to the forefront.
They ask the public to pay Bitcoins for S-Coins and claim they will mail the coins to their clients, a scenario that Lazar considers ridiculous because cryptocurrencies are supposed to be digital coins. Lazar says that if they were real and legit, they would be part and parcel of a real Blockchain and be only digital, so that they"re spoken for, encrypted, ultimately secure, transparent, and safe and visible.
The third top scam coin identified by Lazar is EarthCoin. Although a quick search on coinmarketcap.com reveals a market cap of $935,638 and an available supply of 9,346,468,332 EAC, Lazar does not seem convinced that the coin is genuine.
This coin also has its superblocks, whose coins were vastly pre-mined and even instamined, suggesting that some or all of a coin’s initial supply is generated automatically by the developer at, or prior to, the public launch, rather than being generated over time through a form of mining. Such tricks are usually applied in a pump and dump set-up schemes.
Nawaf Abdullah, CEO of a Ghana-based Bitcoin exchange eBitcoinics, tells Cointelegraph about his reluctance towards accepting EarthCoin.
Abdullah says:
“It is just one of those pump and dump coins which probably would have its HYIPs and all, right after getting the recognition it needs, they just dump it and it"s back to the nothing, that’s what it is.”
With no good website, neither any robust information to tell what the coin really is or intends to achieve and a current volume, Nawaf says that all visible factors justify the coin as an element that can be dumped at any given moment.
“Seriously if you ask me I have no vivid info what to even tell you rather than what it is really and that"s a big scam a coin it is. Not every cryptocoin is worth the try and EarthCoin is a stay away from type,” he concludes.
We may not see the last of creations that are characterized by unclear processes. However, it is the responsibility of every individual or group of investors to carry out proper due diligence ahead of venturing into new areas of investment.
Bryan Tuck
Partner
Markethive Inc.
(231) 487-2032
Join our Cryptocurrency Group. Time is running out.
https://markethive.com/group/cryptocoin
P.S. Learn how regular JOES are earning up to 1 bitcoin every 24 hours using our proven system
Originally published at www.cointelegraph.com - February 7, 2016
Steven Cavan
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SUCCESS = MINDSET + LEARN + APPLY + TEACH
Steven Cavan
