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Cryptocurrencies have been dropping in value this Saturday, May 12 as most digital assets are down between 3-15 percent. The price of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is hovering around $1,446 at press time while gaining 3.4 percent today — And Bitcoin Core (BTC) values are averaging roughly $8,473 per BTC and its markets are down 1.4 percent this weekend. Also read: Court Orders Chilean Banks to Re-Open Crypto Exchange Accounts Digital Assets Take a Dip During This Weekend’s Trading Sessions Traders and cryptocurrency enthusiasts are uncertain of the short-term path ahead for digital assets, as most cryptocurrencies have lost a bunch of value once again. Many believe digital assets will see a rise at some point next week, as cryptocurrency markets have consistently risen every year in mid-May year after year. News has been fairly positive as Wall Street seems to be embracing cryptocurrencies even more so these days as new indexes and funds have launched. However, crypto-proponents are still concerned about regulations as exchanges are still being raided in South Korea and other governments enforce new measures. Moreover, the infamous Mt Gox trustee has moved bitcoins once again, and many believe those coins are being liquidated for fiat. Top ten cryptocurrencies on Saturday, May 12, 2018, according to Satoshi Pulse. BCH Market Action Bitcoin Cash (BCH) values have dipped considerably since our last markets update as BCH prices over the past seven days have lost 13.6 percent. Even though prices are down volumes have risen and the past 24-hours worth of trade volume is around $1.49Bn today. Right now the top five exchanges swapping the most BCH today are Okex, Upbit, Bitfinex, Bithumb, and Huobi. South Korean markets (KRW/BTC) have spiked considerably when it comes to BCH trades this weekend. BTC pairs with BCH have dropped but is still the most dominant pair as BTC encompasses 28.3 percent of BCH trades. This is followed by tether (USDT 26.4%), KRW (21%), USD (20.1%), and the euro (1.9%). BCH/USD Technical Indicators Looking at charts show some consolidation taking place and new positions being staked. The two Simple Moving Averages (SMA) show bulls could still take the game back to the upside, as the 100 SMA is still largely above the 200 SMA. MACd indicates some uncertainty at -42.17 which could show some improvement may take place in the near future. Relative Strength Index oscillator indicates the same sentiment, as it meanders around 42 at press time. Order books show bulls need to break resistance at $1,490 to move further ahead and from this vantage point, it still looks attainable. On the back side if bears try and short the market books indicate there are solid foundations between $1,360 and $1,250. BCH/USD Bitfinex May 12, 2018 BTC Market Action Bitcoin Core (BTC) markets are down 14 percent over the past seven days and one BTC is priced at $8,473 per unit. BTC volumes are decent today with over $7Bn worth traded over the past 24-hours. The top five exchanges trading the most BTC today includes Binance, Bitfinex, Okex, Huobi, and Bitflyer. The Japanese yen is the dominant currency traded with BTC as the yen is capturing 52.9 percent of today’s trades. This is followed by the USD (21%), tether (USDT 16.7%), KRW (3.8%), and the euro (2.6%). The most popular swap today on May 12 on the peer-to-peer platform Shapeshift is BTC for BCH. BTC/USD Technical Indicators Looking at the 4-hour BTC/USD chart shows the two SMA trend lines are currently different than BCH markets. The short-term 100 SMA is below the long-term 200 SMA which indicates the path to resistance may be towards the downside. At press time bulls have attempted to cross above the $8,550-8,650 range, with little luck. MACd shows this action just took place but more improvements can happen within the coming hours. RSI levels are around 45.5 which indicates some consolidation and some upwards movements are still in the cards. BTC bulls have to eat through massive sell walls to get above $9K again and then more mountains above $9,600. On the backside there are stiff foundations around $8,150, and if that area breaks we will see another pitstop at $7,800. BTC/USD Coinbase May 12, 2018 The Verdict: Market Optimism Remains As stated above, there are a lot of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and traders betting on a rise in digital asset markets in the near future. But this past dip seems to show a bit of consolidation before any type of break out takes place, as most currencies touched a three-week low this week. Even so, most people still seem optimistic for the coming weeks ahead. Where do you see the price of BCH and other cryptocurrencies headed from here? Let us know in the comments below. Disclaimer: Price articles and markets updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not to be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.” Images via Shutterstock, Trading View, and Satoshi Pulse. Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section. The post Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Lose Steam During the Weekend appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The first initial coin offering (ICO) by a publicly traded company in Thailand has begun trading on a couple of local exchanges. Meanwhile, the regulators are still drafting the legal framework for cryptocurrencies and token sales. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space First Public Company to Launch ICO The launch of an ICO by a publicly traded company has paved the way for other token sales in Thailand. Jay Mart Plc’s subsidiary, J Ventures Limited, launched its ICO called Jfin Coin last week. Jay Mart Plc operates in the wholesale and retail sectors for mobile phones and technology accessories and is listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). The pre-sale of Jfin Coin was held on February 14 at the rate of 6.60 baht (~US$0.21) per token, which was sold out. Its ICO debuted on local cryptocurrency exchange Coin Asset at 6.45 baht, but quickly tanked 57.09% to roughly 3 baht before regaining some of its losses. It is currently trading at 3.94 baht (~$0.12). Initially, J Ventures was going to trade the tokens on a much larger crypto exchange in the country, the Thai Digital Asset Exchange (TDAX). However, the company switched to Coin Asset, which has much lower liquidity, according to the Bangkok Post. Jfin Coin also started trading this week on another local platform, Cash2coins. J Ventures CEO Thanawat Lertwattanarak told the news outlet that the company plans to list Jfin Coin on Hong Kong’s Hitbtc as well as South Korea’s Upbit in the near future. His statement came prior to Upbit being investigated by the Korean authorities for alleged fraud. Other ICOs Follow The Thai government is currently drafting the regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and ICOs. However, some companies are not waiting for the legal framework to be introduced. Following Jfin Coin, Zmine Holdings Limited is also planning a token sale. CEO and co-founder Kasem Pativitvatana said the company expects to raise at least 180 million baht (~$5.6 million) through the issuance of 100 million ZMN tokens in order to expand its crypto mining business which began in 2014, Prachachat Turakij reported. The pre-sale of ZMN tokens began last week. MGR Online reported that 2 million tokens were sold on the first day for approximately 3.5 million baht (~$109,825). Recently, “the Finance Ministry took steps to put the brakes on the Initial Coin offering (ICO) bandwagon by threatening to hit the emerging ICO market with value-added tax and capital gain tax,” the Nation Multimedia described, adding: Under the proposed new laws, the [Thai] Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would be responsible for regulating the ICO market, covering securities and other kinds of digital tokens. One key feature of a related new law covers the electronic-KYC (know your customers) requirement aimed at preventing money launderers and other criminals from taking advantage of the new funding channel. Do you think the Thai government will let ICOs flourish? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Coin Asset, J Ventures, and Zmine. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Public Company’s ICO Paves the Way for Other Token Sales in Thailand appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

This week the two popular Bitcoin Cash social media applications, Memo and Blockpress have rolled out a bunch of new features on each platform. Now users on both platforms can upload pictures, video, and even torrent magnets found on the Pirate Bay. Also Read: Trading Cryptocurrencies Like a Boss Takes Time and Research Memo and Blockpress So far over the past couple of weeks, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) supporters have been utilizing two specific BCH-powered social media platforms — Blockpress and Memo. The Memo application arrived on the scene first during the second week of April offering BCH users the ability to write 77 character-long phrases using an on-chain method called an OP_Return transaction. Every action on Memo utilizes a transaction and an extremely small fraction of BCH and over the past few weeks; Memo has added a bunch of new features. The Memo app keeps adding features like topics, archived, personalized, and a new post feed. At the end of April news.Bitcoin.com reported on Memo adding additional features like replies, emojis, and a counter for typing. The platform was getting a lot of use seeing more than 3,000 transactions in one day when the developers added the ‘reply’ feature. Now the Memo programmers have added a ‘Topics’ section a place where people can discuss specific subjects such as adding a dislike button to Memo, Christianity, BCH price predictions, flat earth conspiracies, and any topic that’s trending on the application. Memo Images, Video, and Pirate Bay Magnets Moreover, on May 10, the Memo development team added image and Youtube video support to the platform. This means Memo users can upload a picture or their favorite Youtube video utilizing an on-chain BCH transaction. The very next day a user implemented a live stream video over the BCH chain using Webtorrent, Memo.cash, and Blockpress. Another added a Pirate Bay torrent magnet using Memo as well in hopes the application can be used for an “uncensorable Pirate Bay.” Blockpress Also Adds Video and Images, and Says More Features to Come After the May 15 BCH Upgrade Then on May 2, another on-chain BCH powered social media application was launched called Blockpress. When Blockpress launched, news.Bitcoin.com spoke with the platform’s developer who calls himself ‘Attila’ and is a big believer in the future of BCH. At launch, Blockpress offered a similar Memo-like platform but looked like a Twitter UI and had the ability to add an avatar picture, and profile cover photo. Just like Memo, the Blockpress platform enables the ability to publish 77 characters via the Bitcoin Cash network. Blockpress provides the ability to add images and videos. Then three days ago the Blockpress developer added the ability to add images to posts, a notification feed, community topics, and a sidebar of your followed profiles on Blockpress. Just like the Memo application, a bunch of people are testing out the platform’s newest features. Further, Attila says after the May 15 BCH upgrade the Blockpress platform will have the ability to upload much longer content (Tumblr style — via IPFS and also a 220-byte OP_Return update on May 15). Blockpress feed and the developer has added a community section as well. So far on both platforms, there’s a lot of users sharing their thoughts and content with Memo taking the lead on users since it was launched two weeks before Blockpress. Both BCH-based applications seem to be following a competitive path towards adding new features like images and videos. It will be interesting to see what kind of capabilities Memo and Blockpress get after the upgrade next week. What do you think about the new features on Memo and Blockpress? Have you tested any of these platforms yet? Let us know in the comments below. Images via Shutterstock, Blockpress, and Memo. Have you seen our new page, Satoshi Pulse? Check out the top 500 cryptocurrencies prices in real-time. No need to refresh as updates are automatic. The post BCH-Powered Social Media Apps Launch New Features appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The Satoshi Revolution: A Revolution of Rising Expectations Section 3: Decentralization Chapter 8, Part 1. Crypto: Civil Law Versus Common Law “World’s Second Most Valuable Cryptocurrency Under Regulatory Scrutiny.” “Bitcoin CRACKDOWN: IMF chief Christine Lagarde calls for cryptocurrency regulation.” “France announces Bitcoin regulations amid cryptocurrency ‘bloodbath’.” 2018 is the year in which cryptocurrency will be regulated. The questions are by whom and how? The two traditional answers have been civil law or common law. But there is a third alternative. Namely, preventive self-regulation, which can also be called simple decency. This is not a matter of law enforcement but of personal responsibility for your own behavior. It means being the adult in a room of children who are acting out. Regulation is coming because crypto is being defined as much by its abuses as by the benefits it provides. The problems are real. And that’s a problem because it provides a plausible doorway through which government can walk. The “abuses” to which I refer do not include drug deals or the private stashing of personal cash. Those are not the abuses of crypto; they are benefits. Cryptocurrency allows people to control their own bodies and wealth in a peaceful manner that harms no one else. That is its power and true beauty. The abuses are the rampant number of scams and hustlers who prey on average people; predators are robbing honest folk who are simply trying to avoid a corrupt financial system in order to leave an inheritance for their children and keep food on the table. The predators convert a vehicle of freedom into a path for theft. Part of the problem is that too many honest people are standing by, watching it happen. The Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke is credited with saying, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” I’ve never liked that quote; it places responsibility for the triumph of evil on the shoulders of good people who are simply minding their own business. That’s wrong. But there is a point at which focusing on the business of personal life becomes dangerous because there are politicians and other criminals who circle and await the chance to attack those who are not paying attention. Pay attention now. Crypto will be shoved up against a brick wall of regulation in 2018, and it will occur with the applause of the public. They will applaud for good and bad reasons. One bad reason is that crypto is still an arcane mystery to most people, and they mistrust it. They say “it is vaporware that is based on nothing” as though the pieces of paper they spend every day are somehow different. One good reason for the urge to regulate crypto is that so many people have been fooled and burned by incompetent or unethical parts of the community. Cynical commentators can yell “caveat emptor!”—let the buyer beware!—all they want. That’s a way of blaming the victims, who certainly bear some responsibility. The words “due diligence” come to mind. But there is something badly wrong with a system in which honest people are being robbed and scammed on a regular basis. It is wrong when government does it to people, and it is wrong when a financial network does it. Cryptocurrency was designed to empower people, not to impoverish them. The current abuses mean that the application of law to crypto is inevitable. The pivotal question is whether cryptocurrency will be regulated under civil law or common law. Or a third alternative. The choice is between government control or the private policing of behavior. Which will it be? Government or self-regulation? Of course, government will impose itself to the extent possible. But private actions are giving it the justification to do so. The ideal solution is common law but the ideal rarely has a clean victory. The reality will probably be a mixture of both. Civil Law Versus Common Law Civil law is political law. This is civil law: “We feel very strongly that we need to have this kind of regulation [on the trading of cryptocurrency] all over the world…The EU, I understand, is moving very quickly in that direction and we think it’s very important that similar regulations are happening in a number of other countries.” —Sigal Mandelker, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Civil law is what most people wake up to every morning. It is distinct from criminal law in that it addresses contracts, business arrangements, inheritance, and the other legal matters that average people confront on a daily basis. Civil law is passed by legislatures, and it is codified into established rules that dictate people’s lives. Much of it is valid. It answers real questions–like how do I resolve a property dispute with my neighbor or divide up property in a divorce? But it also expresses the interests of third parties, especially government, in matters that enrich them at the expense of average people. The more law becomes “statute,” the less it reflects the daily needs of people. Common law offers an alternative legal blueprint. Rooted deeply in the English tradition, it is a body of law that develops from the grassroots upward. It involves no presence of Parliament. It comes from the decentralized judicial decisions that arise from real legal disputes. Someone did not pay for a chicken he “purchased”; the seller asks a court…how do I receive fair payment? A business deal dissolves; how can the investors fairly split up the remaining assets? These are real-people problems. The answers offered by judges may be right or wrong, but they do not benefit the privileged. This is common law, and it is so named because it benefits the common person. Happily, average people usually want to live in peace, pure and simple. That makes common law a relatively straightforward thing. Almost every common law and its associated judicial proceedings advance the non-initiation of force, for example. They all embrace standards of evidence, such as published transcripts, that make people accept the system as just. Common law is far preferable to civil law. But common law is imperfect. It can substitute the arbitrary opinions of judges for the self-interested opinions of politicians. The best solution for cryptocurrencies is no law at all. It is self-regulation. Don’t allow foreseeable problems of fraud or theft to arise in the first place. As with every healthy community, the standards of conduct are set by normal people who are trying to function and feed their children. The crypto community is no different. Yes, cryptocurrency needs to be regulated. But it should be private regulation that responds to a fast-moving world of real people, not the needs of bureaucrats. That’s common law. Ideally, it is the private policy of the decent human beings who have always dominated crypto but who need to stand up and shout “ENOUGH!” at those who are treating freedom as a free pass to crime. [To be continued next week.] Reprints of this article should credit bitcoin.com and include a link back to the original links to all previous chapters Wendy McElroy has agreed to ”live-publish” her new book The Satoshi Revolution exclusively with Bitcoin.com. Every Saturday you’ll find another installment in a series of posts planned to conclude after about 18 months. Altogether they’ll make up her new book ”The Satoshi Revolution”. Read it here first. The post Wendy McElroy: Crypto – Civil Law Versus Common Law appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Reports suggest that Facebook may develop its own crypto. The plan is worth a mention, especially on the backdrop of the crypto ban imposed by the social media network. In Saturday’s Bitcoin in Brief, we also cover Telegram’s advance towards implementing its payment system using the Gram token. Some blockchain stories with beers and beamers complete today’s round-up. Also read: Bitcoin in Brief Friday: China Mulls Blockchain Standard, Zcash Fights Chinese ASICs Facebook Mulls Own Token, Reports Say Facebook is reportedly considering creating its own cryptocurrency. Sources familiar with the matter told the financial news outlet Cheddar that the social media giant is serious about the project to introduce global crypto payments on its platform. A digital token would allow its two billion users around the world to take advantage of crypto transactions and skip state-issued fiat currencies. Facebook announced recently that it had formed a team whose main task will be to explore the uses for blockchain technologies that the company can utilize to improve its business. The group is headed by David Marcus, former head of Facebook Messenger and ex-president of Paypal, who currently sits on the board of Coinbase. The development of the payments system, however, is likely to take some time, possibly years. Marcus, who is a crypto enthusiast and an early investor, has been quoted as saying that crypto payments are still very slow and expensive. Facebook is not planning to hold an initial coin offering (ICO) to fund the project. In January, the social network banned crypto-related ads, including advertisements of token sales. Telegram Moving Forward with Crypto Payments Telegram, on the other hand, has already raised enough money to fund its own blockchain project and payment system. The messaging service, which is popular with the crypto community, has already attracted $1.7 billion dollars to finance its Telegram Open Network (TON). The company, founded by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, has decided to call off a planned public ICO. According to Russian media reports, Telegram is now conducting closed tests of a new service designed to store users’ information and documents for verification purposes. Telegram Passport will be used to keep personal details and copies of IDs, banking statements, and utility bills which will be used to identify users on Telegram’s blockchain TON. The identity verification feature is needed to facilitate payments using Telegram’s own crypto token called Gram. Once uploaded, the personal information can be potentially shared with partners within the platform, but also on their systems. Telegram Passport, which should be launched by the summer, is expected to prevent anonymous crypto payments. Crypto Beer Vending Machine to Check Age Civic, a San-Francisco-based startup, has recently announced plans to introduce a “crypto beer vending machine.” The project, which will be realized in partnership with a leading US beer producer, aims to also prove that blockchain can be used to verify if a thirsty guy or girl have 21 years of age to legally consume the alcoholic beverage. To get a cold can, one has to install Civic’s app on their smartphone, verify their ID, and then walk up to the machine, Futurism reports. The project’s success depends on the readiness of government authorities to accept identity verification performed on a blockchain. Civic’s beer vending machine is still a prototype. BMW Tracking Mileage on a Blockchain Another blockchain partnership aims to track the mileage of cars. A team at BMW, the German automobile manufacturer, has been tasked with finding a way to better preserve the resale value of vehicles leased by the company. Collecting reliable data for the mileage, amortization and maintenance of these cars is crucial for achieving the best price on the second-hand market. The blockchain startup DOVU has been invited by BMW to establish a partnership with Alphabet, the auto giant’s leasing and fleet vehicle branch, and BMW’s Innovation Lab in order to develop a system to collect and keep record of the important information. The companies behind the project hope to also evaluate how effective tokenization can be in encouraging customers’ cooperation. In a pilot program implemented by the partners, BMW drivers are prompted by a custom wallet app to take a picture of their dashboards once a week. All submissions are added to DOVU’s blockchain which is used by Alphabet to compile consistent and unalterable data reflecting the exploitation of the vehicles. The information is then used to assess the mileage and the depreciation of the used cars and ultimately determine their resale value. What do you think of today’s Bitcoin in Brief stories? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Bitcoin News is growing fast. To reach our global audience, send us a news tip or submit a press release. Let’s work together to help inform the citizens of Earth (and beyond) about this new, important and amazing information network that is Bitcoin. The post Bitcoin in Brief Saturday: “Social” Coins, Crypto Vending, Blockchain Mileage appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

According to a recent study, 5,000 Indian software developers currently have the skill sets to work on cryptocurrency and blockchain projects. 10,000 more developers can be easily trained but an additional 30,000 would require extensive training. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space 5,000 Developers Qualified A recent study by HR company Belong shows that, out of an estimated two million software developers in India, about 0.25% of them have the skills to work on cryptocurrency and blockchain projects, the Times of India reported this week. The study was conducted on two million software developers over the last year. The company found that only 5,000 of them have the necessary combination of skills such as “data science, algorithms and cryptography” to be qualified to work with cryptocurrencies or blockchains. Belong co-founder Rishabh Kaul asserted that “India does have the potential to train another 10,000 developers” with prior experience in the fintech industry so that they are equipped with the proper skill sets to work on cryptocurrency projects. However, he noted that another 30,000 software developers who have worked “in back-end tech roles” still “require extensive training and upskilling” before they have the proper skill sets to work as blockchain experts on crypto projects. However, companies are facing challenges in finding qualified developers, Belong’s study revealed. Kaul explained that the demand for developers with the right skill sets needed for projects related to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is expected to grow further, adding that: Developers must essentially have skills in data science, algorithms and cryptography to work on such platforms. Popular Demand The number of companies looking to enter the cryptocurrency space is increasing. Burning Glass Technologies wrote in October last year that “because of its connection with ‘cryptocurrencies,’ blockchain is associated with finance, and major banks like Liberty Mutual, Capital One, and Bank of America have posted openings.” Earlier this month, freelance employment website Upwork released its Q1 2018 skills index. “The Upwork Skills Index ranks the site’s 20 fastest-growing skills in a quarterly series that sheds light on new and emerging skills as an indication of hot freelance job market trends,” the company described. Blockchain tops the top 20 fastest-growing skills in the time period, the company detailed, adding: Its growth exceeded 2,000% for three quarters in a row on Upwork.com, and in Q1 it experienced more than 6,000% year-over-year growth, making it the fastest-growing skill out of more than 5,000 skills on the site. What do you think of the number of qualified Indian developers? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post 5,000 Developers in India Ready to Work on Crypto Projects appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Notoriously hacked cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox isn’t done with bitcoiners just yet. Just as it appeared the world’s most popular cryptocurrency was ready to strike above the stubborn high nine thousands in price, Nobuaki Kobayashi, Tokyo-based, court appointed trustee of the remaining bitcoin to be distributed among creditors, seems ready to flood another 8,000 coins onto a fragile market struggling to recover. Also read: Venezuela’s President Launches Crypto Funded Youth Bank, Encourages Mining Farms Gox Trustee to Flood Market with Over 8,000 Bitcoin The Tweets were unusually sure over the last three weeks. Luminaries who’ve seen it all wistfully claimed that, should the speculative price of bitcoin core (BTC) break above $10,000 again, and this was all but a foregone conclusion in their view, it would be the last time investors would ever see such a low. And then something happened along the way. The hot hand held by BTC enthusiasts was left cold: the price dropped to the low nine thousands. Then it broke below $9,000. It would finally settle very near $8,000 by press time. Mt. Gox happened, again. The exploded exchange from ancient history by crypto standards, 2014, is rearing its head in the form of trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi. Yet another flood of bitcoin selling appears to be poised, as Blockchain.info shows over 8,000 from the court ordered fund’s cold storage wallets (two) was recently shifted. As watchdog news of coin movement spread, the corresponding bitcoin core (BTC) price plummeted. It is unclear whether Gox coins will be shed through mainstream markets or over-the-counter exchanges. Fear, doubt, uncertainty (FUD) has been heaped on the digital asset in particular this week not only surrounding a potential market dump but also through legacy business media incessantly quoting Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Bill Gates about the supposed inherent ills of crypto. Not First Rodeo Something on the order of 137 thousand bitcoin remain in the Gox trust, according to various sources and wallet monitoring groups. The ecosystem has long accused institutional whales of shorting the market at the expense of overall prices. And as BTC goes, so do, historically, the rest of the cryptocurrency listings across the board. Not quite two months ago, Mr. Kobayashi dumped nearly half a billion dollars worth of BTC and bitcoin cash (BCH) onto markets. The response, which the Gox trustee denied, seemed to be an economic law: prices bottomed out under the mere weight of momentary over supply. Mr. Kobayashi insisted his flood back then had been orchestrated through OTC outlets rather than more mainstream markets. What is highly probable, however, is arbitrage of a sort. Keen OTCers could snap up discounted BTC and BCH, and then promptly unload them onto recognizable exchanges. The rub is always trying to avoid the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, exuberantly asserting because X happened before Y, it caused Y. But price movement charts are pretty compelling, correlating well between Gox floods and price drops. Do you think the Gox trustee’s actions are influencing prices? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Gox Trustee to Flood Market with Thousands of Bitcoin, BTC Price Drops Below $9K appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The following opinion piece was written by Jonald Fyookball. In parts 1 and 2 of How Bitcoin Cash …, we uncovered the important principles of community education and clarity. Now it is time to turn our attention to one of the most obvious things that went wrong in BTC — the centralization of protocol development. Also read: How Bitcoin Cash Can Avoid the Same Mistakes as Bitcoin Core, Part 2 How Bitcoin Cash Can Avoid Centralization Decentralization comes in many forms: decentralization of nodes, mining pools, wealth, and so on. One thing that was overlooked for a long time in Bitcoin BTC was that while many things were well distributed, there was only one main group of developers (Bitcoin Core). Decentralized Development Most of the BCH community is now well aware of this folly, and that is why we seek to have multiple independent teams of developers along with multiple full node implementations. Miners need established, robust software they can rely on, and its important to have several choices; otherwise it means that a single group of developers essentially controls the protocol. Entrenchment of “The Reference Implementation” Bitcoin Core became entrenched as “the” Bitcoin software, which led to stagnation. Although there were already several different implementations, the dominance of Bitcoin Core has been overwhelming. Technically, it’s hash power that matters, not how many different nodes are running a certain software… But given the totally lopsided distribution, it was clear that anyone running a different version from Core would be a tiny minority. That means Bitcoin Core calls all the shots as far as BTC protocol rules. BCH is Doing Better Already We’re heading in the right direction but we’re not out of the woods yet. One interesting phenomenon is that the current level of BCH development decentralization is often either underestimated or overestimated. On one extreme, some believe development is fully decentralized (since there’s, what, 6 node implementations now?). By contrast, others see the leading team (Bitcoin ABC) as having become the next reference implementation. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Bitcoin ABC runs around 60–70% of the BCH nodes and Bitcoin Unlimited runs about a third of them. Essentially, instead of one main implementation, there’s now two. Maybe that sounds a bit disappointing, but that’s twice as many as BTC. Meritocracy A meritocracy is defined as “the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability.” There’s often a misguided notion that the main development groups in BCH should have magically have equal influence, rather than acknowledging that influence must be earned. Those fearful of ABC having too much power might not understand this principle, or more likely, they haven’t seen all that ABC has accomplished to earn what is currently a majority “market share”. The fact of the matter is that Bitcoin ABC has been the best in class when it comes to leading protocol development, producing timely releases of solid code, and solving problems. To be specific, it was Bitcoin ABC that created the first node software for Bitcoin Cash, and spearheaded both hard fork upgrades along with the Cashaddr addresses. Healthy Competition is the Way Forward This is not to say that Bitcoin Cash wouldn’t benefit from an even more disbursed landscape, with several of the smaller implementations gaining more market share and influence. Instead of the misplaced idea that ABC should be reigned in, other teams should catch up to ABC by competing. That means they need to do as good a job as ABC has done at leading protocol development and delivering reliable software that serves the community. While its good to have a healthy fear of avoiding another “Core”, Bitcoin ABC actually has been extremely inclusive toward other teams. ABC organizes meetings with other BCH devs (both online and in real life), has created open work groups for various Bitcoin related topics, has invited developers from other groups into their private discussion channels, and has even written code for other teams. It feels that we’re on the right track with decentralizing protocol development, and I expect it will continue to improve over time. In the upcoming conclusion (Part 4), we’ll take a look at mining, development funding, and some big picture solutions. Written by Jonald Fyookball Jonald Fyookball (pseudonym) is a cryptocurrency enthusiast, best known as the project leader of the Electron Cash wallet, and for a series of hard hitting articles on the Bitcoin scaling debate. Jonald is a computer scientist, businessman, investor, libertarian, and Bitcoin advocate. What are your thoughts on educating the BCH community? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a store. And a forum. And a casino, a pool and real-time price statistics. This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support views, opinions or conclusions drawn in this post. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any information in this Op-ed article. The post How Bitcoin Cash Can Avoid the Same Mistakes as Bitcoin Core, Part 3 appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner, Hester Peirce, delivered a speech before the Medici Conference earlier this month discussing many issues pertinent to ICOs. Mrs. Peirce indicated that the SEC is open to discussion of developing a regulatory sandbox for ICOs, however, expressed a number of concerns surrounding the legislative model. The commissioner also warned of the potentially stifling effect of applying “blanket” classifications to the emerging field of cryptocurrencies. Also Read: Robinhood App Valued at $5.6 Billion – Now Available in 10 US States SEC Commissioner Welcomes Discussion of Regulatory Sandboxes Commissioner Peirce opened her speech by stating that “Back in Washington, DC, there has been a lot of talk about regulatory sandboxes,” adding that “A number of forward-looking regulators, both here and abroad, have created regulatory sandboxes.” Mrs. Peirce cites a number of examples of effective regulatory sandboxes, including the United Kingdom – where the Financial Conduct Authority governs a sandbox that “allows businesses to test innovative products, services, business models and delivery mechanisms in the real market, with real consumers,” and Singapore – where the Monetary Authority of Singapore uses regulatory sandbox apparatus to “encourage[e] more Fintech experimentation so that promising innovations can be tested in the market and have a chance for wider adoption, in Singapore and abroad.” “The motivating notion behind a regulatory sandbox,” Mrs. Peirce asserts, “is that the regulator in a sense sits in the sandbox with the innovator. Not only is she right there to make sure that nobody gets hurt, but she has a front-row seat on the innovative process. She sits at the entrepreneur’s shoulder as he thinks through how to address structural and aesthetic weaknesses in his sandcastle.” “Talk of sandboxes is welcome, and my fellow regulators’ sandboxes have already yielded great dividends,” Mrs. Peirce added. Concerns Surrounding Regulatory Sandbox Approach Despite expressing her openness to discussion surrounding regulatory sandboxes, the commissioner outlined a number of qualms held regarding the legislative model. Mrs. Peirce states that “The regulator may insert itself inappropriately into the creative process,” stressing that “The regulator should be careful not to try to control the development of new technologies. Not only is it outside the regulator’s proper function, but such micromanagement can result in the regulator forcing new technology to fit existing—and familiar—regulatory frameworks regardless of whether those frameworks are appropriate.” “The law deserves respect, but technological progress should not be bound by the limits of the regulator’s lawyerly imagination,” added Mrs. Peirce. Commissioner Peirce also outlined concerns that regulatory sandboxes create “the temptation […] for regulators […] to substitute their own judgement for that of consumer and investors,” emphasizing that “Regulators do not need to take on the impossible task of deciding what products and services will win over consumers. The market is efficient at signaling which products and services people want in their lives and which they would rather do without.” Regulation as Instrumental in Defining the Future Direction of Innovative Technology Mrs. Peirce stated that “The world of tokens and ICOs is still in its infancy,” emphasizing that “Determining the appropriate regulatory regime also will mean determining the shape these transactions will take as they mature. The commissioner added that “While it’s tempting to envision what might come to pass if these concepts were free to develop in whatever way the market dictated, without being pinned down with a label […] there comes a point where regulatory uncertainty is a greater roadblock than confinement within a particular regulatory regime.” Commissioner Peirce “Wary of any Blanket Designation for all ICOs” Mrs. Peirce expressed caution regarding regulators seeking to hastily create a broad label for the dynamic and still emerging ICO sector. After arguing that the majority of “tokens or coins used in initial coin offerings […] look the most like securities,” the commissioner stresses “This is not to say that all ICOs must be deemed securities offerings. Given the undeveloped nature of this area, I am wary of any blanket designation for all ICOs. Instead, the best path forward, at least for the time being, is to evaluate the facts and circumstances of each offering.” Commissioner Peirce also implied that the SEC will develop a unique apparatus of ICOs deemed to fall under the regulator’s purview, stating “For those ICOs and tokens that do come under the SEC’s jurisdiction, it will fall to us to devise an appropriate regulatory structure for these new types of deals.“ The Regulatory Challenge of Innovation Mrs. Peirce stated that “Innovation is always a challenge for regulators. We are used to the way things have been done. Our rules have grown up in response to past technologies. Figuring out whether and how they apply to new ideas is difficult.” Commissioner Peirce also warned that regulators “must be careful not to let our lack of familiarity with new technology breed anxiety and therefore bad regulation,” adding that “There is a risk, when something truly innovative comes along, that regulators will focus only on the harms the innovation may bring and miss entirely the opportunity it presents to improve people’s lives.” At the speech’s conclusion, Mrs. Peirce stated that “The best path forward is for regulators to approach ICOs and tokens with intense curiosity. We must put in the effort to learn about these new technologies and employ the staff necessary to support our understanding.” “My hope is that we can navigate these new waters collaboratively. The SEC’s role is not to hand out permission slips for innovation. Innovation happens—organically through private decisions and irrepressible human creativity. We at the Commission have a role to play in protecting investors and market integrity by deterring and punishing fraud and setting clear rules. As we sit atop our lifeguard’s stand and survey the beach, however, let’s not lose sight of the benefits new technology can provide in the area of capital formation, market efficiency, economic growth, and overall societal well-being.” Do you think that a regulatory sandbox for ICOs is a good idea? Share your thoughts in the comments section below! Images courtesy of Shutterstock, sec.gov Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post SEC Commissioner Cautiously “Open” to Regulatory Sandbox for ICOs appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Graphics card manufacturer Nvidia has announced its revenues for the first quarter, mentioning separately the amount generated from sales to the crypto market. The total includes $289 million related to GPUs for cryptocurrency mining, according to a corporate report. Demand from crypto miners was stronger than expected, the company noted. Also read: New Player Asrock Said to Enter the GPU Mining Market Crypto Miners Bought a Lot of GPUs, Nvidia CEO Reporting its financial results from a strong first quarter, Nvidia Corp. has revealed, in a separate box, the amount it generated from sales to the crypto sector – $289 million. According to the company’s CFO Commentary on Q1 Fiscal Results, the total revenue increased 66 percent year-over-year, and 10 percent sequentially, to a record $3.21 billion. All platforms – Gaming, Professional Visualization, Datacenter, and Automotive – have produced growth, the company said. “GPU business revenue was $2.77 billion, up 77 percent from a year earlier and up 12 percent sequentially, led by Gaming and Datacenter,” the leading video card manufacturer announced. Gaming revenue was up 68 percent from a year ago and down 1 percent sequentially. Datacenter revenue exceeded $700 million, up 71 percent from a year ago and up 16 percent sequentially, Nvidia detailed. “OEM [original equipment manufacturer] sales included $289 million related to GPUs for cryptocurrency mining,” the company pointed out, revealing reportedly for the first time the revenues from its sales to the crypto market. Demand from cryptocurrency miners in the first quarter was stronger than expected, Nvidia admitted Thursday on its earnings conference call, according to Bloomberg. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said: Crypto miners bought a lot of our GPUs in the quarter and it drove prices up. I think that a lot of gamers weren’t able to buy into the new Geforce as a result. However, the company expects sales in the sector to fall by about two-thirds in the current quarter. GPU Manufacturers Benefit from the “New Form of Computing” Earlier this year Jensen Huang predicted that despite regulatory pressures, the popularity of cryptocurrencies will grow in the next few years. The chief executive of Nvidia said that cryptocurrency, or the “ability for the world to have a very low-friction, low-cost way of exchanging value, is going to be here for a long time”. In March, Huang told CNBC that cryptos and blockchain, “a fundamental new form of computing,” will be important drivers for the GPU market. He was also quoted as saying that Nvidia needs to increase its GPU production, admitting that the surging demand may be coming from the decentralized nature of cryptos. “There are supercomputers in the hands of almost everybody. No singular force or entity can control the currency,” he added. Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia’s main competitor, has also benefited from increased sales to crypto miners. According to a report by the analytical firm Jon Peddie Research, demand from the sector helped AMD reduce the gap between its results and those of Nvidia. In the last quarter of 2017, AMD’s share of the GPU market rose from 27.2% to 33.7%. The authors noted that its products remain cheaper, while offering practically the same productivity, when it comes to crypto mining. In April, Advanced Micro Devices announced that its revenue for the first quarter amounted to $1.65 billion, with net income reaching $81 million. Again, the positive results were helped by continued demand for cryptocurrency mining hardware. “The first quarter was an outstanding start to 2018 with 40 percent year-over-year revenue growth,” said AMD president and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. What are your expectations for the market of crypto mining hardware this year? Tell us in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Bitcoin News is growing fast. To reach our global audience, send us a news tip or submit a press release. Let’s work together to help inform the citizens of Earth (and beyond) about this new, important and amazing information network that is Bitcoin. The post Nvidia Reports $289 Million Revenue from the Crypto Sector in Q1 appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

This week a Bitcoin Cash organization was founded called the Cash Consortium (C2) that aims to be a technical group framed off of the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) open standards. C2 is an international community that intends to bolster open standard development in order to provide long-term Bitcoin Cash growth. Also read: Upgrade Time: Bitcoin Cash 32MB Fork Activates Tuesday The Cash Consortium: Open Standards for Bitcoin Cash Much of the cryptocurrency community understands what open source or open standard development is, and most of them embrace the idea. Furthermore, organizations like the W3C and other believers of open standards welcome the sharing of open sourced code that allows anyone the rights to study, change, and distribute OSS protocol for any purpose. Open standards also allows other developers to review a protocol’s design in order to prevent flaws and bugs within the software by coming up with sets of development standards that everyone agrees to and uses. The Cash Consortium will have engineers from leading companies to work together to build Bitcoin Cash (BCH) development standards much like how developers build on the open web with shared concepts like HTML. “The C2’s mission is to lead Bitcoin Cash to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the blockchain,” explains the C2 website. Bitcoin Cash is the soundest money the world has ever known. It has scarcity, fungibility, divisibility, durability and transferability. It’s our intention that it remain the soundest money the world has ever known — Bitcoin Cash enables smart contracts/property, colored coins, tokens, ICOs and much more. We intend to standardize these emerging technologies in a way that plays to Bitcoin Cash’s strengths. A Formal Bitcoin Standards Body At the moment organizations that are listed as members of C2 include Cointext, Atlantis Labs, Akari Global Foundation, the Bitcoin Cash Fund, Bitbox, Blockpress, Centbee, and the social network Yours. Last night news.Bitcoin.com spoke with the creator of the Cash Consortium, Carlos Cardona, who is also the lead developer of Bitbox, the open source development toolkit for Bitcoin Cash. Cardona tells us he is a firm believer in open standards and explains why he initiated the C2 organization. “When I was in college I was a member of the W3C’s HTML5 Working Group. There were engineers from Apple, Google (who I was with), Microsoft, Firefox and many more meeting up regularly in working groups to flesh out the next generation of technical specs for the web (HTML/CSS etc),” Cardona tells news.Bitcoin.com. “When the spec was nearing completion the teams would each implement it. Some open source like Firefox. Some closed source like Internet Explorer. But both implementing technical specs which were created together.” When I joined the blockchain space several years ago it surprised me that there was no formal Bitcoin standards body. The Cash Consortium will affirm and adhere to the Principles in support of The Modern Paradigm for Standards—cooperation, due process, broad consensus, transparency, balance, and openness. Huge Forces at Play Are About to Phase the Blockchain Industry Then Cardona says he started thinking about the upcoming Bitcoin Cash upgrade that will not only increase the block size by 4X but the fork will also add Satoshi OP_Codes that can enable the ability to create color coins and smart contract features on the BCH network. “With the new OP_Codes coming I had recently been thinking again about how to best standardize on new transaction types and then Memo/Blockpress happened,” Cardona emphasizes. “Having recently updated Bitbox’s block explorer to support both Memo and Blockpress I was struck with the same feeling I had during IE6/FF days — writing code twice with slightly different APIs because there was no standard. With OP_RETURN going from 80 bytes to 220 bytes we’re just seeing the start of OP_RETURN prefixed protocols — That got me thinking again about a standards body.” In my opinion our industry spent many years fighting the Blockstream wars and became complacent — Things which I would expect in any other nearly decade old tech industry (such as a tech consortium) doesn’t exist in our space. The final part which caused me to move on it was when I found out Zuckerberg created a blockchain division last week. To me that is just a sign that HUGE forces are at play which are about to phase shift our entire industry. Cardona Believes the Opportunity to Move Quick and be Proactive is Now The C2 website explains that if you work with a company that develops with Bitcoin Cash then they can feel free to fork this repo or reach out to Cardona to see how you can get involved. “I believe we have the opportunity to move quick, be proactive, build bridges and standardize or some much larger player will step in an do it for us,” Cardona adds. What do you think about the Cash Consortium (C2)? Do you think its a good idea for BCH developers to initiate open standards for protocol and application development? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments below. Images via Bitcoincash.org, Pixabay, The Cash Consortium, and Open Stand logos. Get our news feed on your site. Check our widget services. The post The Cash Consortium Launches Open Standard Initiative for Bitcoin Cash appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

It’s a story straight out of cinematic lines: whale cryptocurrency investor rakes in mounds of money, and reaching a “satiety point” decides to give a healthy portion of it to worthy charities. And add to that the spectre of remaining anonymous, the ecosystem, beset by dreams of easy fortunes and Lambos and glory, was given a real-world object lesson in five short months. Health care, water potability, education, digital rights advocates, among many others, all felt the power and generosity of crypto. This week, Pineapple Fund announced its final donation. Also read: Ethereum Founder Responds to Charges of “Insane”, “Plutocratic” Governance Pineapple Fund Issues its Final Donation In a subreddit post this week, Pineapple Fund’s anonymous benefactor wrote, “It’s been five months, and having just made my last PF donation to the Internet Archive, I figure it might be a good time to say farewell.” Pine, as the anonymous poster goes by, continued by thanking the broader community for offering worthy organization suggestions, and also thanked “the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency community, for turning a Sourceforge project into a $0.5T industry.” The fund burst upon the crypto community mid-December of last year, right at the height of bitcoin core’s (BTC) price spike. “The anonymous donor says he saw the promise of bitcoin long before it broke the single-digit price range. The donor explains the ‘shattering returns’ of bitcoin over the years has given him more money than he can spend,” these pages documented at the time. Donations ranged between $50,000 to $5,000,000. Around since the mid 1980s, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) researches and educates about “the medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana.” It was one of the organizations deemed worthy of a $5mil gift from the fund. Give Directly, a group facilitating the ability to send money directly to the extreme poor, also landed among $5mil donations. It claims to distribute 88 percent of each dollar to those in need. Roughly $1,000 is sent to well vetted recipients who often use what is the equivalent in about a year’s wages for essential housing materials. A Strong Legacy The final recipient of $5mil was the Open Medicine Foundation (OMF). It’s goal is to both fund and initiate collaborative and groundbreaking research into chronic complex diseases, focusing upon the End ME/CFS Project, designed to find biomarkers and effective treatments for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. “I kind of miss the old times when bitcoin was a small community,” Pine wrote, “and you could count the number of ‘altcoins’ with one hand. Finding someone else who even knows about bitcoin was incredibly rare, and exchanges were semi-automated or running on PHP.” Community response was effusive with praise such as, “Thank you for doing what so many wish they would do in your position but yet fail to when they get there. Really proud of you and appreciative of your generosity,” one commenter wrote. Still another insisted, “This kind of generosity will indirectly impact so many peoples’ lives for the better. Thank you!” Other commenters held onto the idea of Pine returning at some point should the market tick back up again, and prices moon. “Thanks for following along with this experiment. I’m going to say goodbye now, but maybe there’s room for dessert in a few years,” Pine teased. “If you’re ever blessed with crypto fortune, consider supporting what you aspire our world to be. :)” Of course, others are currently involved in charitable, real-world work, such as Eat BCH. The group doesn’t enjoy the financing of a whale, and yet it provides food relief for countries such as Venezuela, which has suffered greatly in a giant economic downturn. Is charity an important way to promote crypto? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Pineapple Fund. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Bitcoin’s Anonymous $55 Million Pineapple Fund Gives Final Donation appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Every good trader knows their TA from their FA, and can appreciate the effect that fundamental and technical analysis have on market movements. But what about SA? Sentiment analysis, which involves making decisions based on the emotions of other traders, is arguably just as important, especially in the cryptocurrency market, where a herd mentality prevails. Also read: South Korea’s Largest Crypto Exchange Upbit Under Investigation for Fraud Other People’s Feelings Matter “Don’t trade on your emotions” is one of the first rules a trader learns, because making yourself a hostage of FOMO, and all the feelings that come with it – remorse; euphoria; despondency – is a recipe for disaster. But what about trading on the emotions of others? You might be a mechanistic trading automaton, with your unbridled emotions kept in check, but the rest of the market is not, and it’s their decisions – no matter how irrational – that move markets, not yours. As an example of sentiment analysis, consider the periodic bitcoin movements of the Mt Gox trustee. Every time he sends a tranche of coins to a different address, BTC dumps. Technically, this occurs because people are anticipating that when he offloads 8,000 BTC onto the open market it will cause a flash crash. And yet the trustee has provided reassurances that he is not selling his coins in such a manner, yet BTC still drops the moment he moves coins. The only interpretation is that traders are anticipating other traders dumping BTC on the news and are clamoring to sell first. Even if you have faith in the trustee’s intentions, simple sentiment analysis tells you to sell. There’s a Fine Line Between TA, FA, and SA Technical, fundamental, and sentiment analysis are disciplines which intersect. Even if you’ve not been overtly factoring SA into your trading, it will have influenced your decisions. For example, a number of cryptocurrency traders have little love for Tron (TRX) which they deem to be a shitcoin. That doesn’t stop them from speculatively buying it though any time it’s dropped to a previous support level. Why? Because they know it’s almost certain to pump again for reasons that cannot be rationally explained using TA or FA. The same applies to other “penny cryptos” like verge. Sentiment analysis is basically a self-fulfilling prophecy: that if enough traders believe in X, then X comes to be true. For example, do coins pump by 100% when they are listed on Binance because of the increased liquidity and wider investor access this brings? Or do they pump because everyone expects them to pump, and so everyone panic buys in a race to the top? Then there are coins like IOTA, which has a tendency to rise in price every time someone publishes negative news about it, which is a frequent phenomenon. One interpretation of IOTA’s immunity to “FUD” is that its community stubbornly buys up more of it during times of crisis as a gesture of defiance. Tools for Measuring Sentiment Analysis You won’t find an SA overlay in Tradingview, but there are tools that provide a crude reckoner of overall market sentiment at a given point in time. One example is the Fear & Greed Index that charts emotions and sentiments from a range of aggregated sources. Right now, we’re in “fear”, but that’s still an improvement on last month’s “extreme fear”. Crypto Sentiment provides a more comprehensive set of SA tools including an index of strategic bias and an overconfidence index that “reflects the risk that investors might take to risky positions based on the behavior of the bitcoin price”. When trying to time their entry and exit points, good traders already factor in sentiment analysis. They might not explicitly refer to it by name, but they know it when they see it. For all the automated tools, bots, and indicators that have been developed over the years, markets remain deeply irrational and hostage to human emotion. Many traders are predicting a strong bitcoin and altcoin bounce in the wake of next week’s Consensus summit. Why? Because that’s what happened last year. It doesn’t matter if last year’s bull run was a coincidence: all that matters is that if enough investors expect the same to occur this year, it will occur. Once a belief takes root, feelings trump technicals every time. Do you think sentiment analysis is a useful trading tool? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Alternative.me and Crypto-sentiment.com. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Sentiment Analysis Is the Best Trading Tool You’re Not Using appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Fundstrat Global, a favorite research firm in the cryptosphere with Wall Street-street cred, is once again providing eye-popping bitcoin (BTC) predictions. This time analysis depends largely on what’s known as the mining economy. Hash power and hardware advancement all combine to show a possible $36,000 BTC price by the end of next year, they claim. Also read: JP Morgan Chase Eats Humble Pie, Applies for Blockchain Patent Fundstrat Continues Moon Price Predictions Fundstrat’s head of data research, Sam Doctor, explained, “The release of the next generation of rig hardware should trigger a new round of capex as well as hash power growth, which could accelerate if BTC price appreciates.” Capex is short for capital expenditure, and refers here to upgrades in technology such as mining rigs. Hash power growth can be thought of as cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin using proof of work, relying on a unit of measure basically recording power consumed by the network to keep it humming along, in this case, roughly every ten minutes a block is found or generated. Internal Fundstrat research document “We believe the current path of hash power growth supports a BTC price of about $36,000 by 2019 year end, with a $20,000-$64,000 range,” Mr. Doctor continued. “The primary net sellers, in our view, are bitcoin miners, and the rest are transactions between investors.” If a multiple of four from its current price seems ambitious, the actual range from Fundstrat pushes the high to nearly twice even that number. Mr. Doctor uses mining economics to establish a floor support level due to its supposed relative growth going forward. Through next year, researchers believe mining hash power will indeed boom by 350 percent. A Rosy Immediate Future Most of the price moon prediction depends upon miners Fundstrat assumes will hold their position through the crypto winter, and then sell once it recovers (and better). Moving variables in the mining economy include rig innovation, electricity cost, and the ability to lower hardware temperatures. Mr. Doctor further elaborated how “miners verify and process transactions, supporting the network in exchange for mining rewards and transaction fees. We argue that the Price/Miner’s Breakeven Cost multiple has proven a reliable long-term support level, and further, that the likely trajectory of future mining infrastructure growth should underpin Bitcoin price appreciation into year-end 2019.” And harder numbers Fundstrat asserts to be $6K per BTC for Bitmain’s Antminer S7, and just over $2K for its S9 model. Such rosey price predictions are nothing new for Fundstrat Global. Its very public face, and really only prominent Wall Street analyst to take cryptocurrencies seriously as an asset class, Tom Lee, famously last Summer forecast BTC becoming a store of value on par with gold, reaching a high of as much as $55K by 2022. As more information has come in, Mr. Lee has also said he expects the digital asset could moon to $25K by the end of this year alone. Still other analysts believe the causal connection between mining activity and speculative price is not well established, leading to perhaps more outlandish price calls as a result. And with other cryptocurrencies battling it out for market share, offering varieties of features not currently found in bitcoin, the BTC price explosion might not be such a given. At press time, BTC price hovered around $8,500, down almost ten percent. What are your crypto price predictions? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Fundstrat. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Bitcoin Moons to $36,000 by End of 2019 According to Fundstrat appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Last month we re-opened our Bitcoin.com Store after some construction and a bit of hiatus. After a month of operation we’ve added even more to the store with hardware wallets, new t-shirts, Cryptomatic watches, and now we’re even selling Amazon gift cards. Also Read: Trading Cryptocurrencies Like a Boss Takes Time and Research Crypto-Infused Products for Both Veterans and Noobs If you are tired of hodling your cryptocurrencies and want to spend bitcoin cash on some cool swag, then the Bitcoin.com Store is the place for you. Over the past few weeks, we’ve added a slew of new goods that will make any digital currency enthusiast happy. Whether you are a noob or a crypto-veteran we got products for everyone like t-shirts for the ladies and men, hoodies, and snapback hats. Or if you’re looking for a touch more swagger, then we also have a wide variety of stylish Cryptomatic watches. Arrive at the Party in Style With a Cryptomatic Watch Our assortment of Cryptomatic watches is a vast collection of colors, styles, and different wrist straps. For instance, the ‘Hodler Rose Gold’ watch with chocolate leather strap has a beautiful 42-mm open case, displaying the hour indexes in binary and decimal digits. The watch also features a numbered disc indicating the minutes through an aperture on the right side of the dial, under its large sapphire crystal opening. The signature seconds-hand incorporates the Bitcoin symbol to complete the design. Keep Those Coins Secure With a Keepkey Now if you really want to ‘Hodl’ your coins then a hardware wallet is the best way to keep your cryptocurrencies safe from hacks or theft. At the Bitcoin.com Store, we sell top quality hardware wallets manufactured by Keepkey, a subsidiary of the popular peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange Shapeshift. The Keepkey wallet has been around for quite some time and it supports cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash (BCH), litecoin (LTC), dash, ethereum (ETH), and more. The Bitcoin.com store wants you to keep your digital assets secure with this industry-leading hardware wallet. $10-500 Amazon Gift Cards for Sale Lastly, the mother of all new products is our new line of Amazon gift cards. Yes, you read that correctly, you can now purchase Amazon gift cards in denominations of $10-500 with bitcoin cash. With an Amazon gift card, you can choose from millions of items and buy the hottest goods on the planet. In order to purchase an Amazon gift card simply choose how much you want to buy and go through the checkout process as normal. A verification email will be sent to you immediately and after the funds’ process, another email with the gift card code attached is sent to your email. With some bitcoin cash and a few Amazon gift cards, soon enough you’ll be the coolest cat on the block thanks to Satoshi’s blockchain technology. Hodling is not easy, and sometimes you just want to spend some of those satoshis on something unique that shows off your cryptocurrency passion and spirit. The Bitcoin.com Store has all that and more, and we plan on continuing to bring the best crypto-infused goods to our customers on a daily basis. What do you think about the Bitcoin.com Store? Let us know what you think in the comments below. Images via the Bitcoin.com Store, Shutterstock, Keepkey, Amazon, and other associated logos. Why not keep track of the price with one of Bitcoin.com’s widget services. The post Bitcoin.com Store Adds More Hot New Items and Amazon Gift Cards appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release. The pioneering Ethereum-based e-commerce solution is looking for Sellers and Ambassadors to kickstart its new platform. BitBoost will launch its decentralised marketplace in June. The project, which is built using Ethereum’s smart contracts, will enable buyers and sellers to connect directly – facilitating free and private online commerce. Traditional user experience, low fees The marketplace takes the form of a downloadable piece of software that connects to the Ethereum blockchain via either BitBoost’s node or a local node, if preferred. Payments for goods are made in ETH, and all listings cost a flat fee of just $1, payable in the BBT token. The team has worked hard to replicate the look and feel of traditional e-commerce platforms, with instant search and product images hosted on Imgur for anonymity. ‘We think this is going to be a game-changing decentralised e-commerce solution,’ says founder and CEO Paul Mahone. ‘We believe in free trade, and the BitBoost marketplace entirely removes several common barriers and intermediaries in online commerce. Anyone can sign up for an account. You don’t need to submit an email address or any personal details: all that is required is an Ethereum address. The interface is clean and familiar, payments are fast and borderless, and privacy is built in.’ Sellers’ Programme BitBoost is looking for merchants to join the platform’s Sellers’ Program, bootstrapping activity on the marketplace and helping to build network effect and momentum. With low listing fees, and a smart contracts escrow system to protect both buyers and sellers, the company believes it will be an attractive alternative to the high commission fees and data harvesting that are the price of doing business in the traditional e-commerce industry. BitBoost is also looking for Ambassadors to promote the initiative around the crypto world and the broader e-commerce sector. If you would like to be involved in the project as a Seller or Ambassador, contact info@bitboost.net. ####### Contact info: Álvaro Rodriguez CMO alvaro.rodriguez@bitboost.net Supporting Link https://mailchi.mp/247bc905d5c6/sellers-campaign This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. The post PR: BitBoost’s Blockchain Marketplace Goes Live in June appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Trading app Robinhood which started offering bitcoin and ether trading in February has attained a valuation of $5.6 billion after raising $363 million, the company has confirmed. The app is now available in 10 U.S. states. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space $5.6 Billion Valuation Robinhood started out about three years ago as a simple stock trading smartphone app with no transaction fees. The company is now valued at $5.6 billion following a new financing round announced on Thursday. Robinhood confirmed that it has raised “$363 million to expand [its] product lineup.” “Our platform has also grown significantly, reaching over four million users, cementing Robinhood Financial as the fastest-growing brokerage ever,” the company wrote, adding: On the heels of this growth, we recently raised $363 million in capital, valuing Robinhood at $5.6 billion. The series D round of funding was led by DST Global, with participation from new investors Iconiq, Capital G, Sequoia Capital, and KPCB. Existing investors included NEA and Thrive Capital. Robinhood announced the integration of bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) in January, with actual trading beginning on February 22. A few days after the initial announcement, over a million people had already signed up to get access to trade cryptocurrencies. Crypto Helps Growth According to its website, “Bitcoin and ethereum trading is now available in California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, and Wisconsin” through Robinhood Crypto. The app caters to “the ‘millennial’ population, roughly ages 18 to 35. The demographic is often considered a challenge for traditional financial institutions to reach, and Robinhood is trying to attract the group by offering commission-free trading through an app,” CNBC described. “The company generates revenue by taking a tiny fraction of a cent per dollar from each trade order as well as collecting interest on customer deposits.” Most of the cryptocurrencies held by Robinhood are kept in cold storage, the publication conveyed, adding that For cryptocurrency trading, Robinhood has no investment minimums or maximums and no withdrawal limits. Besides crypto trading and market data services for BTC and ETH, Robinhood Crypto also supports real-time market data for “bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin gold (BTG), dash (DASH), dogecoin (DOGE), ethereum classic (ETC), lisk (LSK), litecoin (LTC), monero (XMR), NEO (NEO), omisego (OMG), qtum (QTUM), ripple (XRP), stellar (XLM), [and] zcash (ZEC).” “We also plan to support the ability to buy and sell other cryptocurrencies through Robinhood Crypto,” the company emphasized, clarifying that “supporting market data for individual cryptocurrencies does not necessarily mean we plan to add buying and selling.” What do you think of the Robinhood app and its valuation? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Robinhood. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Robinhood App Valued at $5.6 Billion – Now Available in 10 US States appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, Upbit, is suspected of fraud and is currently under investigation. The prosecutors have conducted searches at the exchange and confiscated computers and accounting records. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space Upbit Under Investigation South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, the Kakao-backed Upbit is suspected of fraud, according to local media. While maintaining that customers’ assets are still kept securely, the exchange posted the following statement on its website: Upbit is currently under investigation by the prosecution, and we are working diligently. Upbit services such as all transactions and withdrawals are operating normally. Upbit is currently the world’s fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange and the largest in South Korea with a 24-hour trading volume of $1.812 billion at the time of this writing, according to Coinmarketcap. The exchange is affiliated with Kakao Corp which operates the country’s most popular chat app, Kakao Talk. Suspected of Fraud Crypto of Korea explained: The company [Upbit] is suspected of transferring customer funds from their cryptocurrency exchange account to a representative or executive account…Korean prosecutors have conducted search and seizure against the nation’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, on charges of fraud. According to the publication, the financial investigation team of the Seoul Southern District public prosecutors’ office sent prosecutors and investigators to Upbit headquarters on May 10 and May 11 “to secure computer hard disks and accounting records.” More than 10 investigators were sent to Upbit, Money Today added. “After the digital forensics investigation on the seizures [seized items] and confirming the illegal charges, we will decide whether and in what direction we will investigate further,” the prosecutors were quoted saying. Accused of Deceiving Customers Upbit allegedly “pretends to hold [virtual currencies] without holding virtual currencies,” the news outlet noted. “The prosecution believes that Upbit has entered [into] the computer system as if it had virtual currencies that it does not actually own, and deceived customers,” KBS elaborated. According to the prosecution, the Hankyoreh described, “Upbit has been suspected of carrying out ‘book-trading’ without holding virtual currencies in a wallet.” The Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) have been investigating domestic crypto exchanges since March, according to Yonhap News. Their first target was Coinnest where the chairman, Kim Ik-hwan, was detained over embezzlement and fraud charges. According to Money Today, unlike Coinnest, there is no suspicion of embezzlement with Upbit. Do you think Upbit is guilty? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Upbit. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post South Korea’s Largest Crypto Exchange Upbit Under Investigation for Fraud appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In today’s Bitcoin in Brief we are covering a number of stories related to China. According to statements by Chinese officials, the People’s Republic is developing a national standard for blockchain technologies, which should be introduced next year. Also, the Zcash Foundation is taking steps to protect the network of the privacy coin from ASIC-based mining. Chinese giant Bitmain has recently launched its Antminer Z9 Mini designed to process transactions for cryptos like Zcash, which use the Equihash algorithm. Also read: Bitcoin in Brief Thursday: Bitcoin Supporter Might Be Next NY Attorney General China Preparing National Blockchain Standard Chinese authorities are working to develop a national standard for blockchain technologies and applications. The new system should be completed and introduced by the end of 2019, according to reports by state-controlled media in the People’s Republic. A national standard plan for blockchain is under preparation and respective departments will set up a national blockchain and distributed Accounting Technology Standardization Committee said Li Ming, director of the Blockchain Research Office at the Electronic Industry Standards Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Li Ming told the Economic Information Daily that the national blockchain standard will include basic standards, business and application standards, process and method standards, credible and interoperable standards, and information security standards. He also added that the scope of its applicability will be expanded in the future. According to a recent statement by Yu Kequn, director of the National Center for Information Technology Security Research, “The development of blockchain technology may become an important step for China to grasp the global technological competition.” Yu Kequn also noted that blockchain technology is a new integrated application of distributed data storage, peer-to-peer transmission, consensus mechanisms, and encryption algorithms. “It has the characteristics of decentralization, openness, tamper resistance, and anonymity,” the official pointed out and added: “It can be applied in the production, management, and transaction chains, and it will bring the entire life cycle of restructuring to different areas, so that it can be managed and traceable.” Iceland’s Missing Mining Rigs May Have Been Found in China The mining equipment which was stolen from data centers in Iceland several months ago might have reached China, according to media reports from the Nordic nation, which has attracted crypto miners with cheap energy and favorable conditions. At least 600 computers, graphics cards, motherboards, processors, and other hardware, worth an estimated $2 million, disappeared in a series of burglaries in December and January. Last month, Chinese authorities conducted a raid on a crypto mining farm in the city of Tianjin. According to local media, police have confiscated 600 computers used to mine cryptocurrency in the illegal facility. The suspected organizer of the heist in Iceland, Sindri Thor Stefansson, fled to Sweden after escaping from a low security prison in his country. He was recently arrested in Amsterdam and is now awaiting extradition to Iceland, where he is going to face trial. The ongoing investigation and the court proceedings are expected to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding one of the biggest burglaries in Iceland’s history. Tracing the stolen mining equipment is a priority for authorities trying to get to the bottom of this case. Their findings should prove or dismiss the media speculation around the possible connection between the two incidents. Zcash Opposes ASIC-Based Mining after Chinese Giant Launches Equihash Miner Developers of Zcash have stated that the struggle against ASIC-supported mining is a priority. They have indicated their opposition after the launch of a new application specific circuit designed to process transactions for the privacy coin. Zencash, a Zcash fork, has also announced plans to potentially change its algorithm for the same reason. Earlier in May, the Chinese mining giant Bitmain revealed the upcoming release of a new device that will be capable of working with the Equihash algorithm, which was itself introduced to prevent ASIC mining and is used by Zcash and other cryptos. ASICs were initially developed to mine mainly bitcoin. The highly specialized hardware is capable of handling the enormous number of calculations involved in the processing of its transactions. Bitmain has a track record of successfully overcoming ASIC-resistant algorithms. The mining equipment producer has already developed powerful miners for many cryptocurrencies whose developers have tried to stop the centralization of hashing power. These include miners for the algorithms Ethash, used by the Ethereum network, and Cryptonight, used by Monero. The new Antminer Z9 Mini, developed to mine Zcash, Zencash, and others, offers a hashrate of 10k Sol/s. It was expected to hit the market in June, but according to the manufacturer, it can be ordered now. “To prevent hoarding and to let more individuals worldwide get one, we’ve set a limit of one miner per user,” Bitmain said in a tweet. The management of the Zcash Foundation has decided to allocate resources to study the influence of ASIC mining on the network. An advisory council will be convened to provide a “scientifically grounded answer” to the problem. The team behind Zcash, however, may be forced to fight a war on two fronts, after researchers from the University College London recently found a vulnerability in the crypto’s algorithms. They believe that certain patterns in Zcash transactions significantly weaken its anonymity. The claim is that when the cryptocurrency is transferred from unprotected to protected addresses and then back again, the overall level of anonymity decreases significantly. Student Leaves China after Losing on Crypto Investments A Chinese college student has reportedly lost a small fortune by local standards due to unwise crypto investments and has already left the country in search of better opportunities to compensate the losses. Liu Ke, a sophomore in his twenties, used all his money to buy cryptocurrency, mostly aircoins, when markets were going up towards the end of last year. When cryptos were hitting their all-time highs, he spent a total of 140,000 yuan (~$23,000), including amounts he borrowed from online micro loan platforms like Alipay and Baidu. He even “invested” the money for his tuition fees. Liu Ke told the local outlet 8btc that he now lives and works in the Cambodian coastal resort Sihanoukville, where he hopes to earn more money to cover his debts. What are your thoughts on today’s stories in Bitcoin in Brief? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Yarcube, Wikipedia. Bitcoin News is growing fast. To reach our global audience, send us a news tip or submit a press release. Let’s work together to help inform the citizens of Earth (and beyond) about this new, important and amazing information network that is Bitcoin. The post Bitcoin in Brief Friday: China Mulls Blockchain Standard, Zcash Fights Chinese ASICs appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Aaron Kaplan, securities attorney and COO of Prometheum, is guest author for this Opinion/Editorial. Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have become the investment du jour while the understanding of what ICOs are has become desperately convoluted. Every huckster, scammer and opportunist has tried to hop on the bandwagon. (I’m talking to you, Casey Ryback) Many of these ICOs were a means for scammers to raise money over the internet from unsophisticated investors whose “FOMO” outweighed the obvious red flags associated with such offerings. Also read: Ver’s Sci-Fi Novel Life, Voorhees Buys Tucker’s Tie for $27k Identity Crisis for Initial Coin Offerings The rapid growth of the ICO industry ($6+ billion) and the inherent scams and related investor losses forced the SEC to consider ICOs in the context of the Federal Securities Laws (FSLs). The SEC’s recent broad subpoena sweep marked the SEC’s official declaration that ICOs are securities. Now that ICOs must comply with the FSLs, it should come as no surprise that a new type of trickster is trying to hijack the innovation through either a) selling illiquid tokens to wealthy investors or b) selling traditional securities that are registered on a blockchain. To set the record straight, and provide much needed clarity, here is a condensed description of ICOs and their intended benefit. ICOs are an innovative means of capital formation. Issuers offer a securitization of user interest in an ecosystem as an investment to the general public. Assuming the issuer has reasonable token economics, then the greater the user interest in the ecosystem, and the utility of the underlying token, the more the value of such token should increase. It’s supply and demand, but the price is not reflected in the common stock; rather, it is reflected in the cryptographic token representing the user interest. Aaron Kaplan Furthermore, an ICO should have two key features: 1. It should be available to the general public, and 2. It should be able to freely trade on the secondary market when the token is issued. The securities of ICOs to date have not and cannot achieve both those goals. Such securities are illiquid and only available to accredited investors/institutions. As the industry matures through compliance with all relevant rules and regulations, I fear we are losing the spirit of ICOs, which some argue may not be sustainable under the FSLs. Issue 1: Reg D/SAFT ICOs The Filecoin Reg D token offering in mid-2017 was an important point for honoring the Federal Securities Laws. Reg D ICOs raise capital with proper offering documents (a requirement under the FSLs) by selling tokens that have proposed utility in an ecosystem. While such ICOs are legal by nature, companies conducting ICOs in a Reg D (or a SAFT) offering forgot how an ICO was supposed to function. These Reg D and SAFT ICOs inherently contradict the spirit of an ICO- a token sale that should be open to all investors (both accredited and non-accredited), and freely trading in the secondary market. Reg D and SAFT issuers’ token sales are only open to accredited investors (i.e. wealthy individuals and institutions) and are restricted securities (meaning they can’t trade freely on the secondary market until the issuer files current public information and essentially registers such securities with the SEC). These issuers, while understanding that ICOs are securitizations of user interest, missed the mark. Their ICOs are illiquid and limit participation to the wealthy. Investors won’t have the ability to trade those tokens, and are stuck with illiquid (untradeable) securities that have the same issues as those associated with traditional venture funding – waiting for a buyout event or going public (which is extremely rare) before investors can realize a return on their investment. Issue 2: ICOs vs. Traditional Securities Issued Over a Blockchain Opportunistic companies are also trying to use the concept of an ICO, turning an innovative method of monetizing an ecosystem into a cheap marketing ploy. The most frustrating example of this practice are companies who say they are raising capital for an ICO, but in reality they are just issuing traditional equity or debt securities that are represented by a cryptographic token. These aren’t ICOs, but rather traditional securities registered (like a transfer agent’s log) over a blockchain. While many (including me) believe blockchain securities are the future of securities ownership, a preferred equity token is not an ICO. It is a traditional security that is issued over a blockchain. Securities issued over a blockchain MUST be distinguished from ICOs. An appropriate definition of an ICO in 2018 is the following: an ICO is a securitization of user interest. It is not a debt or equity security, but rather a new type of security – an investment whose value is related to the user’s interest in an ecosystem and the utility of the actual token in that ecosystem. It is essential that the industry understands the difference. In late March, a company tried to issue a blockchain security for a building. Such cryptographic tokens represent ownership in the building and trade over blockchain. That is a traditional Reg D security, and not an ICO. The company received news coverage for being the first company to sell interests in a building using a blockchain. However, many companies have sold interests in real property online. This company is doing the same thing – basically putting lipstick on a pig. So how do we define an ICO? ICOs are innovative ways to unleash/monetize potential value from the user interest in an ecosystem. ICO tokens represent a new type of security whose value is related to the user appetite in that ecosystem (daily average use, recurring use, etc.). Ideally, an ICO should be available to all types of investors (accredited and non-accredited) and be freely tradable when the underlying network goes live. With ICOs officially coming under the FSLs regime, the industry should take a moment to reflect on what an ICO is and will be under the FSLs before it morphs from a genuine innovation into a marketing ploy. This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support views, opinions or conclusions drawn in this post. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any information in this Op-ed article. Who is your favorite bitcoin/crypto pioneer? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a store. And a forum. And a casino, a pool and real-time price statistics. The post What’s In a Name? The Identity Crisis for Initial Coin Offerings appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release. Hyper-localized and global crypto-bank Bitex begins token pre-sale on May 8th, 2018 Singapore — Bitex, the first locally-embedded global crypto-bank, today announced that they are launching their token pre-sale at 3 p.m. UTC, on May 8th. The pre-sale of XBX, Bitex’s utility token, will only be opened to accredited contributors in preparation for the company’s public crowdsale. Bitex’s goal is to provide crypto-banking services that operate at a local level, supplying regionally-tailored banking services to customers that are currently underserved by the current banking system. Bitex believes that it can make the greatest social impact by starting at the local level and working closely with regional experts in marketing and regulation to broaden its reach over time, giving them an edge to become the first truly global crypto-bank for mainstream consumers. Bitex’s coin will be used to provide access to the crypto-banking platform, EZBitex, and BitexPay, the payment solution for consumers and merchants. Additional services provided by Bitex include large scale business-to-business payments, crypto-currency trading and personal loans. As a reward for using Bitex, customers holding XBX will receive discounts on transaction fees for crypto-currency exchanges. “Cryptocurrencies have arrived at a time where they can really help optimize the global banking system,” said Harith Motoshiromizu, CEO and Founder of Bitex Global. “We aim to use crypto-banking to make financial services accessible to every human on earth, starting with those who need it the most.” During the token pre-sale, XBX will be sold at 50 cents USD per coin and can be purchased in ETH and the following fiat currencies: CHF, EUR, USD, GBP, DKK and SGD. There will be 30,000,000 available XBX tokens during the pre-sale with a soft cap of 1,000,000. About Bitex: Bitex will become a cryptocurrency bank that will provide global, yet hyper-localized, banking services through a locally franchised platform. The company was founded a year ago and has already sold 2,760,000 USD worth of licenses in 8 different countries. Currently based in Bangkok, Thailand, Bitex will initially offer its services to customers in Asia but plans to expand its reach to more continents in the coming years. Contact Email Address contact@bitex.global Supporting Link https://bitex.global/?utm_source=bitcoin_dot_com&utm_medium=press_release&utm_campaign=presale This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. The post PR: Bitex Launches Token Pre-Sale to Bring Global Crypto-Banking to the Local Level appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The chief executive officer of Nasdaq, Adena Friedman, discussed cryptocurrency and blockchain, among a number of subjects, in an interview with CNN. In the interview, Mrs. Friedman expressed bullish optimism for the future of cryptocurrency. Also Read: Xapo Estimated to be Housing 6.25% of Total BTC Supply Nasdaq CEO Bullish on Cryptocurrency In the interview with CNN, Mrs. Friedman offered optimism regarding the future of cryptocurrencies, stating “Do I think digital currency plays a role in the economy of the future, I think the answer is probably yes.” Mrs. Friedman added, “How it evolves and which of the cryptocurrencies may or may not be the one that ultimately gets embraced, I think that really the jury is still out on that.” “But I do think the idea of a more globalized payments mechanism that’s more efficient than what we have today, that allows money to transfer cross country, and […] support the internet economy,” said Mrs. Friedman. “It feels like it’s the right next step in the space of currency” “It’s Virtual Cash, That’s the Great Thing About […] Cryptocurrencies” – Nasdaq CEO, Adena Friedman Mrs. Friedman described bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as being highly amenable to contemporary settlement processes at all levels of society, stating “We pay all of our service providers through this electronic means of transferring cash, and we are fine with it. The whole world is changing around payments and it’s going to be fascinating to see where it goes.” Despite her optimism, Mrs. Friedman emphasized regulatory uncertainty as comprising “the major issue” surrounding cryptocurrencies, stating “Are the governments going to start to embrace it, or are they still going to have it sit outside the realm of their oversight. That’s the real question.” Positive Outlook for Blockchain Regarding blockchain, Mrs. Friedman emphasized the opportunities for efficiency in the arenas of post-trade and settlement. “If we can make the system more efficient by shortening settlement cycles, it takes a lot of risk out of system, and therefore it makes it so that the banks don’t have to be as capital intensive,” said Mrs. Friedman, adding that blockchain “creates a lot of incentive for everyone in the entire network to find a way to put this technology in place.” Despite the opportunity for efficiency savings, Mrs. Friedman expects the mainstream markets to resist disruptive technological innovation, stating “in the established markets, there is a lot of embedded, older technology, that you really would have to rip out in order to be able to put this in […] Our view is that the first uses of the blockchain will be in less regulated markets, less efficient markets, more bespoke markets, test it out, show that it works, demonstrate the efficiency in the nasdaq private market, or the fund industry, […] or in […] smart-contracts. Show that it works, and then start to bring it up into the more regulated markets” “I think the technology is a fascinating and very sound technology, its just a matter of making sure that the community is all embracing it together,” Mrs. Friedman concluded. “Nasdaq Would Consider Becoming a Crypto Exchange Over Time” In a recent interview with CNBC, Mrs. Friedman stated that Nasdaq is open to the prospect of offering cryptocurrency exchange services in the future. “I believe that digital currencies will continue to persist it’s just a matter of how long it will take for that space to mature,” Mrs. Friedman said. “Once you look at it and say, ‘do we want to provide a regulated market for this?’ Certainly, Nasdaq would consider it.” Do you agree with Adena’s Friedman’s outlook for cryptocurrency? Share your thoughts in the comments section below! Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Wikipedia Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman is Bullish on Cryptocurrencies appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In less than a week on May 15, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network will be upgrading the base block size from 8MB to 32MB, as well as re-enabling and adding some OP_Codes to the codebase. With just days left there are a few things BCH holders and full node operators should know before the upgrade takes place this coming Tuesday. Also read: Japan’s GMO Has Mined Over 900 Bitcoins – Hashrate Doubled Last Month Just a Few Days Left Until the May 15th Bitcoin Cash Upgrade The Bitcoin Cash network is about to perform the largest block size increase ever as the upgrade will expand the block size by 4X on May 15, 2018. The development team has also added ‘Satoshi OP_Codes,’ and the fork will also increase the protocol’s default data-carrier-size to 220 bytes. Unless you run a BCH full node implementation there is not much a common user needs to do, except refrain from transacting during the upgrade. The Hard Fork Activation Will Use the Median Time Past Method The BCH fork on May 15 will be similar to the fork activations that took place on August 1, and the DAA fork that took place this past November. This means the activation will take place on May 15, but there won’t be specific block height, because the upgrade will activate based on ‘Median Time Past’ (MTP). The initiation of the hard fork will begin on Tuesday, May 15 at 12:00:00 UTC, 2018, but the upgrade will not be implemented until the MTP timestamp and the processing of 11 blocks equal to or greater than 1,526,400,000 takes place. Following this period after the next block, the 32MB upgrade will be live on the BCH network. Full Node Clients and Miners Must Update Software Full node operators need to upgrade their Bitcoin Cash clients as soon as possible, before the fork begins. ABC users can download the latest Bitcoin ABC 0.17.1 version here, and those operating other full nodes like Bitcoin Unlimited, or XT should upgrade to the client that supports the 32MB increase. At the moment looking at data for the most dominant BCH client, Bitcoin ABC, it shows a great majority of nodes have already upgraded to the latest 0.17.1 ABC version. Full node operators and miners are required to upgrade their software in order to participate during and after the network change. Ordinary Users Should Refrain from Transacting With BCH During the Upgrade and Patiently Wait for the Fork to Complete It is best not to transact with BCH during the May 15th Bitcoin Cash upgrade. Ordinary users don’t have to do much of anything, except keep up to date with current events concerning the fork, and its best not to transact during the activation period as well. This means if you don’t have to send money on May 15, then wait until the fork is complete before transacting with BCH. It’s always a good measure to look out for any updates provided by your exchange or wallet provider to make sure the platform you use is ready to accept the network changes. If your BCH service provider does not give any fork updates, it’s probably safe to assume that the exchange or wallet provider is ready for the upgrade. So on May 15 if your money is on an exchange or held within a non-custodial wallet all you really have to do is patiently wait until the fork is finished. Last November’s Successful Hard Fork Shows There Shouldn’t be Any Complications The May 15th Bitcoin Cash fork that will change the protocol’s base block size to 32 MB, while adding some other interesting features will be quite a milestone for the BCH community. The last fork that took place this November was successful, and the new Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA) has worked flawlessly ever since. The 32MB increase will be much larger than the already sizable 8MB blocks, and the upgrade will likely be a historic day for public blockchain consensus upgrades. What do you think about the fork taking place on May 15 that will increase the base block size to 32 MB? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments below. Images via Shutterstock, and Pixabay. Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a store. And a forum. And a casino, a pool and real-time price statistics. The post Upgrade Time: Bitcoin Cash 32MB Fork Activates Tuesday appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Telegram has been testing a new service that will store users’ information and documents for verification purposes, according to Russian media reports. Telegram Passport will be used to keep personal details and copies of IDs, banking statements, and utility bills to identify users on Telegram’s blockchain platform TON. Also read: After Telegram, Viber May Be Blocked, Russian Minister Says Telegram Passport to Prevent Anonymous Crypto Payments Developers at Telegram are conducting closed tests of a new service designed to store personal data, according to sources quoted by Russian media. Telegram Passport will be used to verify identities of users on the messenger’s Telegram Open Network. They will be able to buy goods and pay for services on the TON blockchain platform with Telegram’s crypto token called Gram. Customers will provide their personal details and documents, such as copies of IDs, passports, drivers’ licenses, utility bills, bank statements, and possibly photographs. Once uploaded, the information can be potentially shared with Telegram’s partners within the platform, but also on their systems, Vedomosti reported, quoting two sources close to the company. Telegram Passport, which may be launched by the summer, is expected to effectively prevent anonymity associated with crypto payments, which is a worrisome aspect for regulators around the world, explained Alexander Filatov, partner at SP Capital. His consulting company has invested in TON and facilitated investments of other interested parties. A number of partner businesses will be able to take advantage of the service. The Russian payments services provider Qiwi has already been granted access to the system, according to the report. The company is said to be cooperating with the messenger on the launch of Telegram Passport. Initially, only the users, not even Telegram, will have access to their details and documents. They will be able to secure the data with a password and two factor authentication. The company will use the information only with the account holder‘s consent, according to information shared on the closed pages of telegram.org cited by the Russian outlet. Once Telegram’s partners receive the data, they can verify it according to their own standards. Others are Working on Similar Concepts Telegram’s main competitors in that field are mature systems that use authorization services provided by third-party platforms via Google, Facebook, or Windows Live, said Dmitry Ufaev, head of the Russian operations of Bitfury, a leading manufacturer of software and hardware blockchain solutions. In his words, Telegram Passport will allow the messenger to circumvent these established services, providing greater privacy and data security to its users. This will be a reputational advantage, Ufaev noted. Other major companies are working in the same direction as well, and Telegram is likely to face hefty competition. The Chinese messenger Wechat has already implemented money transfers for users and service providers on its platform. The company is currently testing a digital identity verification system with face detection functionality which should be more efficient than verification based on copies of documents. The tech giant Apple is also working on its Face ID system. According to Alexei Prokofiev, partner at two venture capital funds, states will eventually switch to identity verification based on biometrics. “It’s a matter of digital sovereignty,” he believes. In his opinion, if Telegram does not establish relations with government authorities, it may fail to acquire licenses for providing services in jurisdictions where biometric verification is required by law. News that Telegram is working on its blockchain platform TON came out in January. The company founded by entrepreneur Pavel Durov was able to attract investments worth a total of $1.7 billion dollars to finance the project. Goods, services and other content on TON will be paid with Gram, Telegram’s own crypto. Recently, the messenger called off a planned public initial coin offering. Durov’s company has been involved in a bitter conflict with authorities in Moscow following its refusal to hand over its encryptions keys to FSB, the Federal Security Service. Despite some interruptions, attempts by Russian regulators to block the service in the country have been unsuccessful so far. Russia’s telecom regulator Roskomnadzor has been trying to restrict access to the messenger since April 16 after a decision by a district court in Moscow from April 13. What do you think of Telegram’s plan to introduce identity verification for users of services offered on its blockchain platform? Tell us in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Yarcube, Wikipedia. Make sure you do not miss any important Bitcoin-related news! Follow our news feed any which way you prefer; via Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, RSS or email (scroll down to the bottom of this page to subscribe). We’ve got daily, weekly and quarterly summaries in newsletter form. Bitcoin never sleeps. Neither do we. The post Telegram Reportedly Testing Service to Store Data for Identity Verification appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Various local branches of the Israel Tax Authority have sent out letters to those they suspect are trading bitcoin without reporting it. The tax agency demands in those letters that the recipients will divulge all of their involvement in the cryptocurrency market including all past transaction history and current holdings. People are being asked to list all exchange accounts and wallets they ever had and report their trade earnings. Additionally, the agency demands that people will reveal if they are engaged in mining. Also Read: Bitcoin Supporter Might Be Next NY Attorney General Check Your Mailbox The agency appears to be be very confident in its suspicions as some local tax offices have not even bothered with sending out the letters with demands for information, instead they just opened a business case for anyone they think is trading bitcoin. Those people are simply informed they must pay income taxes as business owners now, fill reports retroactively back from 2013 as well as keep balanced books and report taxes on salaries to employees as any other business, as if they were restaurant or factory owners. Earlier this year the tax agency issued a circular on the matter, declaring that bitcoin is an asset, and thus anyone trading it must pay the capital gains tax of 25% and anyone considered to be running a business must also pay the VAT of 17%. The Tax Authority commented to Israel’s Globes newspaper: “Following the publication of the circular, which reflects the Authority’s position on the taxation method of trading and investing in virtual currencies, the Authority is working to locate those active in the field who do not manage a case in the tax authorities. We recommend that those who conduct unregistered activity in these areas take advantage of the existing channels to settle their issues before they will have to endure the unpleasantness that accompanies enforcement. ” Monitoring Social Media Groups The Tax Authority is not exposing how it got its hands on a list of bitcoin traders in the country to check if they report or not, but there a few obvious ways. The banking system in Israel is very hostile to any bitcoin dealings, and the banks thus probably proactively report all inbound and outbound transactions involving known accounts of exchanges abroad as possible money laundering and tax evasion. And the few local trading avenues available to Israelis can easily be compelled to hand over a list of their clients with a warrant. Investigators have used more creative means, however, people familiar with the tax scene told the Globes newspaper. They claim that undercover agents are monitoring local groups for peer to peer buying and selling of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on Facebook, Telegram and Whatsapp. The information gathered there is said to be sophisticatedly cross-referenced with other available data. What should Israeli bitcoin do with this information? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a store. And a forum. And a casino, a pool and real-time price statistics. The post Israel Tax Authority Hunts for Bitcoin Traders on Social Media appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article