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How to purchase and exchange your litecoin! (longer read)
This post will show you the best ways to buy litecoins using many different payment methods and exchanges for each method. Before you start, make sure you have a good litecoin wallet to store your LTC. NEVER store your litecoins on a crypto exchange.
Popular Exchanges
eToro
Start trading fast; high limits
Easy way for newcomers to get bitcoins
Your capital is at risk.
Coinbase
High liquidity and buying limits
Easy way for newcomers to get bitcoins
“Instant Buy” option available with debit card
Coinmama
Works in almost all countries
Highest limits for buying bitcoins with a credit card
Reliable and trusted broker
Buy Litecoin with Credit Card or Debit Card
Let’s dive into some of the exchanges supporting Litecoin credit card purchases. These exchanges are our favorite ways to buy.
Coinbase
Coinbase is the easiest way to buy litecoins with a credit card. Coinbase is available in the United States, Canada, Europe, UK, Singapore, and Australia. The fees will come out to 3.99% per purchase. Here is a good video that can help walk you through the process of buying on Coinbase, although it’s fairly easy.
Coinmama
Coinmama recently added the ability to buy litecoin directly on the platform. Users from nearly any country in the world can use Coinmama to buy litecoins. Coinmama has some of the highest limits among credit card exchanges.
BitPanda
BitPanda is based in Austria and is a crypto brokerage service. You can buy using a credit card from most European countries.
CEX.io
CEX.io is based in the UK and is one of the oldest crypto exchanges online. CEX.io supports litecoin and its users from nearly anywhere in the world can buy litecoin with credit card on the platform.
Buy Litecoin with Bank Account or Bank Transfer
Coinbase
Coinbase is the easiest way to buy litecoins with a bank account or transfer. Coinbase, like is is for credit cards, is available in the United States, Canada, Europe, UK, Singapore, and Australia. Coinbase is one of primary exchanges used to buy Litecoins. Americans can use ACH transfer (5–7 days wait), and Europeans can use SEPA transfer (1–3 days wait). The fees will come out to 1.49% per purchase.
BitPanda
BitPanda is based in Austria and is a crypto brokerage service. You can buy using SEPA transfer from most European countries. You can also use SOFORT, NETELLER, or GiroPay.
CEX.io
CEX.io also supports litecoin buys via bank account. This is via wire transfer for US citizens, SEPA for Europe, and SWIFT for the rest of the globe.
Binance
Binance is now one of the largest if not the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. It supports bank and card purchases of Litecoin as well as Litecoin trading pairs with Bitcoin and Etehreum.
Get a Litecoin Wallet
Before we move onto other options: Never store your litecoins on an exchange! Always withdrawal your litecoin to an offline cryptocurrency wallet like the Ledger Nano S or any other wallet that you control. The Ledger Nano S and TREZOR are the best options for secure storage.
Other Methods to Buy Litecoin
If you don’t have a card or want to avoid the high fees, you can use the following methods to buy Litecoin as well. Find out which one works best for you.
Buy Litecoin with PayPal
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to buy Litecoin with PayPal. Other sites will tell you that cex allows for this, but that is no longer the case. You can, however, now use eToro to buy Litecoin, unless you live in the United States. If you live in the US, the only way to buy Litecoin with Paypal is to buy Bitcoin using paypal, and then use the Bitcoins to buy Litecoin. You can easily buy Bitcoin using Paypal on Local Bitcoins. Once you have Bitcoin, you can use an exchange like Coinbase Pro to swap the Bitcoin for Litecoin.
Buy Litecoin with Cash
There is no good way to buy litecoins with cash. LocalBitcoins is the most popular way to buy bitcoins with cash, and it does not have Litecoin support. Other popular cash to Bitcoin exchanges like BitQuick and Wall of Coins also do not support LTC. So you will have to first buy bitcoins with cash then exchange them for LTC using the method described below. The same goes for Bitcoin ATMs. Most do not support Litecoin. So if you want to buy litecoins at a Bitcoin ATM you first have to buy bitcoins and then trade the BTC for litecoins.
Buy Litecoin with Bitcoin
If you already have Bitcoins then it is VERY simple to convert some of your BTC to litecoins. You just need to find an exchange with the LTC/BTC pair, which is most exchanges since LTC/BTC is a very popular pair to trade.
Buy Litecoin with Skrill
BitPanda, mentioned above, also accepts Skrill payments for LTC. The fees will vary and are simply included in your buy price.
Cryptmixer
Cryptmixer is probably the fastest way to convert BTC to Litecoin. You just enter the amount of LTC you want to buy, and give them a LTC address. Then they will tell you how much BTC to send to their address. Once your BTC is sent, you will have LTC delivered to your wallet very shortly after.
Buy Litecoin with Ethereum
Ethereum has experienced a massive price rise. Nearly a year ago it was $10, and now at over $500, many want to move some of their ETH gains into other coins like Litecoin. Litecoin has very good liquidity, and is very popular among traders especially in China. So this guide is going to show you how to buy litecoins with Ethereum. We will show some of the best exchanges you can use, and the pros and cons of using different types of exchanges over the other.
Cryptmixer
Cryptmixer is one of the most unique exchanges, and also one of the fastest ways to convert your ETH to LTC. With Cryptmixer you do not even need to store your money with the exchange, meaning you are at very little risk of getting your funds stolen. With Cryptmixer you simply specify the amount of LTC you want to buy, and specific the address to where your litecoins should be sent and within 30 minutes you will have LTC delivered to your wallet.
Poloniex
Poloniex is the world’s largest altcoin exchange. However, there is a huge downside to using Poloniex to convert your ETH to LTC: Poloniex does not have a LTC/ETH market, meaning you have to first trade your ETH to BTC, and then trade your BTC for LTC. While this method works, you will have to make multiple trades and also pay fees twice.
ShapeShift
Shapeshift is basically the same as Cryptmixer, and was actually the first company to come up with the concept of an exchange that does not hold your own funds.
Frequently Asked Questions About Buying Litecoin
Many of you may still have lots of questions about how to buy Litecoin. Odds are we have answered almost any question you could think of below. We will aim to answer many of the most common questions relating to buying Litecoin.
Why are there limited options to buying Litecoin using other altcoins?
The issue in all crypto markets is liquidity. As the space gets bigger, the liquidity also gets better. But as of now, the only VERY liquid cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. So exchanging two altcoins between each other is often harder than if BTC was involved on one side of the trade.
How much is a Litecoin worth?
Like all currencies, the value of Litecoin changes every second. The value of Litecoin also depends on the country you are in and the exchange you are trading on. You can find the most up to date price on Coinbase.
How do I buy Ripple (XRP) with Litecoin?
The best way to buy Ripple using Litecoin is to either use a non KYC exchange like Cryptmixer or start an account on Binance or Coinbase Pro and sell your Litecoin for Ripple. Look for LTC/XRP trading pairs, and make your trade.
How long does Litecoin take to confirm?
Litecoin blocks are added ever 2 and a half minutes. That means you should get one confirmation every two and a half minutes. This can vary if it takes miners longer to discover a block, but the difficulty of the finding a block should change proportionate to the hashing power on the network so that a block gets added approximately every 2.5 minutes. If you are trying to send money to a merchant, they may require more than one confirmation before they send you products. If you are depositing on an exchange, they may also require three or more confirmations before they credit your account.
How many Litoshis make one Litecoin?
one hundred million (100,000,000) Litoshis make one (1) Litecoin.
Where do I store Litecoin?
The best place to store litecoin is on a hardware wallet. You can find the best one for you on our page dedicated to hardware wallets.
When is the Litecoin halving?
The expected date of the next Litecoin block reward halving is August 7th, 2023.
Why can litecoin take so long to buy?
Litecoin can take long to buy because the legacy banking system is very slow. If you are buying with another cryptocurrency, you will see how fast it is to buy! Bank transfer in the USA, for example, take about 5 days to complete. So any purchase of Litecoin made with a US bank transfer will take a minimum of 5 days.
How do I buy Litecoin with Paypal?
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to buy Litcoin with PayPal. Other sites will tell you that cex allows for this, but that is no longer the case. You can, however, now use eToro to buy Litcoineum, unless you live in the United States. If you live in the US, the only way to buy Litcoin with Paypal is to buy Bitcoin using paypal, and then use the Bitcoins to buy Litcoin. You can easily buy Bitcoin using Paypal on Local Bitcoins. Once you have Bitcoin, you can use an exchange like Cryptmixer to swap the Bitcoin for Litcoin.
Can you buy partial litecoins?
Yes, litecoin, like Bitcoin, is divisible to many decimal places so you can buy 0.1 LTC, 0.001 LTC, etc.
Can you sell litecoin?
Yes, you can sell LTC on most of the exchanges mentioned above. The fees, speed, and privacy is the same in most cases.
Can anyone buy litecoins?
Anyone is free to buy litecoins, as long as you find an exchange that supports your country. Most cryptocurrency wallets do not require ID to sign up so you can always make a wallet and get paid in litecoin, too.
Which payment method is best to use?
For speed, credit card will likely be fastest. For larger amounts, bank transfer is best. For privacy, it’s best to buy bitcoins with cash and then trade for litecoins using Cryptmixer or Shapeshift.
Is it better to mine or buy litecoins?
If you have cheap electricity, it might be worth it to mine litecoins. If you have solar power or just want to mine for fun then it could be worth it. Otherwise, it’s probably better just to buy. Mining is constantly changing and small changes in Litecoin price or electricity can greatly affect your profitability.
What should I do with my litecoins once I buy?
You should immediately move your litecoins into a secure wallet. You should never leave your litecoins on an exchange. There have been countless hacks in cryptocurrency since Bitcoin was created in 2009. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost money. So buy your litecoins, and then instantly send them into a wallet you control so you are not at risk of losing money to a hack or scam.
Elrond partners with Swipe to enable ERD spending at over 60 million merchants
https://preview.redd.it/06f3d5ds57c51.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5d76c6770b2fe1f98b96fae201030247a61e2920 We are thrilled to announce that Elrond has partnered with Swipe and will be integrated within the Swipe platforms. This will make the $ERD token directly available for onboarding by more than 500,000 new users. Furthermore, $ERD will be spendable via Swipe Wallet and its associated Visa debit cards, in either digital or physical form, at 60 million merchants directly, as well as through services such as Google Pay, Apple Pay & Samsung Pay. “Bringing our high throughput, low latency, and inexpensive transactional layer online is an important step for our launch. Convenience, ease of use, and utility for the ERD currency is another. We are thrilled to work with the Swipe team, on an integration which brings us closer to what will be a defining moment for the new internet economy.” said Beniamin Mincu, Elrond CEO. Recently acquired by Binance, Swipe is a multi-asset digital wallet and Visa card platform that allows users to buy, sell, convert, and spend cryptocurrencies. It offers direct access to more than 30 cryptocurrencies, buy, swap & sell options for credit or debit cards, and bank transfers. Swipe Wallets have associated virtual Visa debit cards, which can also be obtained in physical form, to be used like any normal card. The payment process automatically converts the selected cryptocurrency into fiat to execute a seamless transaction at any of the 60 million merchants, or via Google, Apple, and Samsung payment services. “Elrond’s notable progress makes it seem like they have just recently appeared. We know ourselves that such success does not come overnight and is the result of hard work. We are excited to include them in our portfolio and be a part of their journey.” said Joselito Lizarondo, Swipe CEO. The integration is important for Elrond because it gets access to new users in 31 European countries, and soon launching in Asia and North America. It also offers existing Elrond users the possibility to spend $ERD directly as $EUR, $GBP, $USD and $KRW anywhere VISA cards are accepted, as well as through the major mobile payment services, with cashback options in Bitcoin. About Elrond Elrond is a new blockchain architecture, designed from scratch to bring a 1000-fold cumulative improvement in throughput and execution speed. To achieve this, Elrond introduces two key innovations: a novel Adaptive State Sharding mechanism, and a Secure Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm, enabling linear scalability with a fast, efficient, and secure consensus mechanism. Thus, Elrond can process upwards of 10,000 transactions per second (TPS), with 5-second latency, and negligible cost, attempting to become the backbone of a permissionless, borderless, globally accessible internet economy. About Swipe Swipe is a multi-asset digital wallet and Visa debit card platform designed to let users buy, sell, and spend their cryptocurrencies. Swipe is headquartered in the Philippines with operations in the United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, and Canada. The Swipe platform enables users to spend cryptocurrencies in real-time without having to manually convert the transactions prior. Users can also buy/sell cryptocurrencies with their linked bank accounts globally. For more information, visit: https://swipe.io
Binance and Swipe Partner to Bridge Crypto and Commerce, Announces Acquisition
https://preview.redd.it/ngofchh33f951.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b87488903cf927abb0cff3431e5a9c083adb0c9 MANILA — July 7, 2020 — Binance, the global blockchain company behind the world’s largest digital asset exchange, today announced the completion of its acquisition of Swipe, the industry’s leading multi-asset digital wallet and Visa debit card platform that allows users to buy, sell, convert and spend cryptocurrencies, for an undisclosed amount. The two companies will work together to further mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies by bridging the gap between fiat and digital assets, notably payments and purchases in cryptocurrency through traditional financial systems. “To achieve our mission of making crypto more accessible to the masses, off-ramps are a key component as well. By giving users the ability to convert and spend crypto directly, and have merchants still seamlessly accept fiat, this will make the crypto experience much better for everyone,” said Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). “Swipe’s exceptional team has made great strides in furthering this mission and has been instrumental in the industry for bridging the gap between commerce and crypto. The Swipe Wallet alone is unique which acts as a digital bank account for its users, providing access to traditional banking services. We are thrilled to work with a team that shares the same core values and looking forward to our larger efforts ahead.” “Swipe’s goal is to further synchronize crypto with fiat currency-based transactions,” said Swipe CEO Joselito Lizarondo. “Partnering with Binance, given their world-recognized track record and user base, alongside a team that constantly executes, will place Swipe in the position to make cryptocurrencies more accessible for millions of users worldwide. We are excited to work with Binance to continue innovating in this crypto-banking space to further build towards mass adoption on our current and future product lines.” Swipe has listed BNB on its platform, making BNB spendable to Euros at over 50 million locations worldwide through the Swipe Visa Debit Card. Swipe’s token, SXP, was also listed on Binance.com today, making it available for Binance and Swipe users to easily buy and use on its respective platforms. Additional plans from the partnership between Binance and Swipe will be announced at a later date. The Swipe platform currently supports a wide range of digital assets that enable them to remain in their native form until a point-of-sale/transaction occurs. The selected digital asset is then converted to fiat currencies passed through the Visa payment rails, making cryptocurrencies instantly spendable in more than 50 million locations around the world with just a tap of a few buttons and a “swipe” of a card. Cardholders can also enjoy up to 4% cashback in Bitcoin on every purchase as well as discounted fees by using SXP on the Swipe platform. Swipe is currently available in 31 countries within the European Economic Area and issued by Contis Financial who is a Visa Europe Principal Member. --- About Swipe Swipe is a multi-asset digital wallet and Visa debit card platform designed to let users buy, sell and spend their cryptocurrencies. Swipe is headquartered in the Philippines with operations in the United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, and Canada. The Swipe platform enables users to spend cryptocurrencies in real-time without having to manually convert the transactions prior. Users can also buy/sell cryptocurrencies with their linked bank accounts globally. For more information, visit: https://swipe.io About Binance Binance is the world’s leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange by volume. Trusted by millions worldwide, the Binance platform is dedicated to increasing the freedom of money for users and features an unmatched portfolio of crypto products and offerings, including: trading and finance, education, data and research, social good, investment and incubation, decentralization and infrastructure solutions, and more. For more information, visit: https://www.binance.com Media Contacts Binance: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Swipe: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
If you are planning to place assets into cryptographic types of cash like Bitcoin or Ether, in any case, you do not understand where to start, this Gemini exchange review will help you with choosing. Gemini Bitcoin Exchange Review 2020 You need yourself to be a productive advanced cash intermediary. By what technique will you become? To help you here's an exchange review, which will give every one of you the low down information required for a powerful enthusiasm for one of the most trusted in stages the Gemini Exchange. We should find all the more right currently review Gemini Review : About Gemini Exchange Twin kin developed Gemini Winklevoss in the year 2014. The Gemini exchange is arranged in New York. The Gemini crypto exchange is open in essentially all US states, similarly as UK, Canada, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong. In 2016, Gemini transformed into the world's recently approved Ether exchange. It positions 82th greatest exchange on earth as showed by 24-hour volume on Coinmarketcap. While Gemini Bitcoin and Gemini Ethereum trading volumes are high, the exchange is endeavoring with all undertakings to fight with those stages offering a predominant piece of the cryptographic types of cash, for instance, Binance. Reinforced Currencies Gemini offers crypto to fiat portions and a BTC/ETH grandstand, which makes it a quick contender to any similarity to Coinbase, Bitstamp, and Kraken. At present, it is one of the most respected and ensure about exchanges open. This is in light of the fact that it has more features to help secure customers against developers. Also, it is one exchange for the CBOE Bitcoin future settlement. Gemini Mobile application is directly available, which is amazingly basic and versatile to use. How to use Gemini? https://preview.redd.it/qnowl19fwaj41.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1819eeac9d4c44681c0afe616d387b60a78f7c8e 1) Go to the official site and snap the "Register" tab on the upper right corner. Enter your name, email address, and mystery word for your own record. While affirming your email address, it is critical to : Affirm your email address and enter both your region and phone number, by then you can set up 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) which will be an additional layer of security to your record. Incorporate your monetary equalization. Starting at now, Gemini recognizes simply bank moves and wires, as a methodology for putting away holds. To check your record, move your organization ID proof. This will help you with executing and trade US Dollars. Moreover, it will help Gemini with as per the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) rules. The affirmation time may run from a couple to a couple of days. Subsequent to completing of all the above strategies, you can use your record for financing. gemini crypto exchange 2) Deposit Currency In the Menu, click Transfer Funds, by then find a good pace Bank Transfer and Exchange. Enter the whole you have to store here. Moreover, note $500 consistently is the most extraordinary most extreme for Bank moves. 3) Trading Bitcoin and Ethereum As you store by methods for bank move, they are quickly available for trading. you can purchase by encountering the menu and picking your supported trading pair. For example, for Bitcoin BTC/USD similarly as Ethereum ETH/USD. In the wake of embeddings the expense and sum it will process your buy demand. There is another choice to trade by methods for the business community which has exhibit orders gave by various customers. After the fulfillment of your purchase, your record will be acknowledged with your Ethereum just as Bitcoin purchases. You can sell your computerized cash on the Gemini crypto exchange. Regardless of the way that you can't make a withdrawal until your bank move has been completely arranged. gemini sponsor organization 4)Trading Limits By and by, For most trade strategies, there are no limitations on trades. In any case, Automated Clearing House (ACH) moves have the greatest store most remote purpose of $500 day and $15,000 consistently for singular record holders. Associations have a state of restriction for making ACH stores of $10,000 consistently or $300,000 consistently. Gemini Marketplace There is a Gemini business focus that runs 24*7. Here, you can have indistinguishable number of solicitations from you wish to have, with a variety of trading choices. These include: Market Orders – With the present best open worth, the solicitations here starting dealing with quickly against resting orders. Purpose of repression Orders – The sum is filled at or better than a given expense. The sum which isn't dispatched lays on the solicitation book diligently until it is filled or dropped. Brief or Cancel (IOC) Limit Orders – The sum is filled at or better than a given expense. The sum which isn't filled rapidly is dropped and doesn't lay on the perpetual solicitation book. Maker or Cancel (MOC) Limit Orders – The sum lays on the solicitation book continually at a foreordained expense. Furthermore, the entire solicitation is dropped if there is any sum that can be filled immediately. All solicitations made on this stage are totally sponsored and fill in as a full hold exchange. In any case, there is no edge trading Gemini. Despite that, reliably the customer's record equality should have more balance than the exceptional excitement on demand books. Also, all open solicitations decline your available leveling until they are fulfilled or dropped Gemini Fees In the event that there ought to be an event of moves, Gemini crypto exchange has a low cost technique and stage customers can store Bitcoin, Ether, at freed from charges for both bank and wire moves. In any case, banks will charge a cost for the customers to wire money to their Gemini account. Withdrawals on the stage are free and all customers will have 30 free withdrawals for each calendar month. Any withdrawals more than this total will pull in costs comparable to the mining charges payable on either sort out. The costs are around 0.001 BTC or 100,000 Satoshi per trade on the Bitcoin Network and 0 GWei or 0 ETH per trade on the Ethereum Network. MakeTaker charges 0.25% is the trading costs for both sellers(makers) and buyers(takers). If it shows up at certain trade volumes, charges will be reduced. The maker charge is 0% for 30-day trading volumes that outperform 5,000 Bitcoin or 100,000 Ether. For a comparable trading entirety, the taker run after will bubble to 0.10%. Gemini uses dynamic maker and taker charge or reimbursement timetable, and sellers can get reimbursement on liquidity-creation trades. The particular entireties depend upon net trading volumes and the buy and sell extent over a multi day time allotment. The data are adjusted as expected and more information on charges can be found here. https://preview.redd.it/exgucn9gwaj41.png?width=225&format=png&auto=webp&s=34fc66d46df40444abcc9ac61308106b2e3f57c0 charges Concerning purchases, the base purchase whole for Bitcoin is 0.00001 BTC, or 1000 satoshis, for Ether, the base sum is 0 .001 ETH Security-at-Gemini Bitcoin Gemini Reviews, is a strong exchange that has a better than average reputation in everyone. The exchange goes about as a way into the universe of cryptographic cash trading. This may be in light of the fact that various customers first quit concerning purchasing Bitcoin and Ethereum. In comprehension to Coinbase, Gemini has a near space. Wherein it allows its customers to make trade clearly to and from their records. Gemini is a not too bad choice, for people looking to securely trade either Bitcoin or Ethereum. The exchange is a potential decision for new competitors to the market similarly as logically settled sellers who like to make trades by methods for their monetary adjusts. Latest News Dec 17, 2019: Well realized cash related pro association State Street picked Gemini exchange for the new propelled asset pilot adventure. Nov 19, 2019: Gemini exchange wanders into NFT's and acquired Nifty Gateway Solution, a phase to buy Non-Fungible Tokens. Nov 14, 2019: The exchange added Stop-Limit to the solicitations being executed on the stage. Sep 11, 2019: Gemini dispatches Gemini Custody with 18 cryptographic types of cash Sep 5, 2019: Gemini Clearing™, a totally electronic clearing and settlement answer for off-exchange exhibited by the stage Aud 27, 2019: Gemini Joins the Silvergate Exchange Network Aug 22, 2019: Gemini loosens up and reaches to Australia April 15, 2019: Gemini wallet support Segwit Gemini Bitcoin Exchange Review Rundown: How to Buy Bitcoins by means of Gemini Register a record at Gemini and check email code sent to you. Set up two-factor validation (2FA). Give checked ID as a major aspect of the confirmation procedure. Include ledger. Store cash by clicking "Move Funds", "Store into Exchange" and afterward picking the sort of bank move. Snap "Purchase" catch and round out the buy structure to get BTC. Is Gemini Safe? Gemini is extremely worried about its clients' wellbeing, in this manner it utilize three arrangements of security... MORE Gemini Comparison with Other Exchanget To exchange bitcoins you have to initially peruse and think about various BTC trades... MORE In Which Countries Is Gemini Available? You can arrange bitcoins through Gemini nearly in any nation, yet discover where you can't... MORE Guide: Buying BTCs at Gemini It is anything but difficult to purchase bitcoins on Gemini trade, knowing the essential standards and prerequisites... MORE FAQ Discover to what extent the exchange takes, how to pull back BTCs and what strategies for... MORE Practically equivalent to Bitcoin Exchanges We have arranged a rundown of trades, notwithstanding Gemini, that can assist you with requesting bitcoins... MORE With developing worth and system, bitcoin is ready to turn into the main online resource in the realm of ventures. Gemini bitcoin trade survey This article is worried about one of the most well known trades with regards to BTC exchange, Gemini. What Is Gemini? Gemini is one of the realized digital money trades that offer an assortment of exchange apparatuses for speculators that have some involvement with the business. The organization that claims the stage is enrolled as LLC in New York State, USA, offering USD to BTC and USD to ETH exchange trade. Purchase BTC at Gemini Propelled in 2015, Gemini offers two unmistakable commercial centers, them being: customary trade administrations; bitcoin barters. Upon its appearance, the stage offered its administrations in the US just, bit by bit including different nations all the while. The organization is possessed by the Winklevoss twins, who guarantee that they are have about 1% of the complete BTC volume. Winklevoss siblings are Gemini's proprietors Gemini Security With regards to the wellbeing of your assets, Gemini applies three arrangements of safety efforts that should be referenced. To start with, the stage applies advanced money safety efforts by offering hot and cold stockpiling wallets, where cold wallets have multisig capacities to forestall hacking endeavors at your equalizations. Gemini security The subsequent measure is identified with the exchange where the entirety of the exchanges at Gemini are led through pre-financed accounts, implying that merchants and purchasers can't post orders on the off chance that they don't have adequate BTC or fiat monetary forms in their parities. Finally, the site security comprises of two-factor verification (2FA) and HTTP encryption of all data in regards to merchants and stage's exchanges from outsiders. Accessible Payment Methods As of now, Gemini acknowledges stores communicated distinctly in ACH (for US dealers) and wire moves (for every other person) communicated in USD. Credit or check cards, money stores, PayPal and numerous different alternatives are wanted to be remembered for the future however are not accessible at the present time. Buy bitcoin by means of wire move You ought to buy in to the Gemini news source since the organization will promote the new store strategy through that channel of correspondence. Shouldn't something be said about Fees? While saving or pulling back your assets communicated in fiat or computerized monetary forms, dealers would find that the administrations are done totally free. Then again, Gemini charges exchange expenses are charged dependent on a month to month net exchange volume. Taker charges can extend from 0.15% to 0.25% while creator expenses from 0% to 0.25%. Expenses at the trade Does Gemini Have Limits? Cryptographic money and wire stores and withdrawals don't have any constraints forced on dealers, implying that in the event that you utilize the said administrations, you can buy, sell and pull back bitcoins with no deterrents. Singular American financial specialists utilizing ACH move, then again, have $500 every day and $15.000 month to month while institutional individuals have $10.000 day by day and $300.000 month to month store limits. No restrictions for purchasing bitcoin Gemini Comparison When thinking about exchanging at any trade, you should hope to analyze the administrations, expenses and impediments with other comparative stages. In this manner, we have assembled an examination investigation where we benchmarked Gemini against two other well known decisions with regards to BTC buy: Kraken and Coinbase. Gemini versus Kraken Kraken, much the same as Gemini, acknowledges bank moves just, with the significant contrast being that Kraken permits 5 fiat cash stores. Notwithstanding bitcoin, there are 14 more altcoins that you can exchange with at Kraken while the two trades force check on their customers as they are both controlled organizations. Gemini versus Kraken Kraken is fundamentally the same as Gemini as far as expenses, as creatotaker charges go somewhere in the range of 0% and 0.26%. Bank moves do accompany little expenses at Kraken while Gemini acknowledges stores for nothing. In conclusion, while Gemini exchanges two or three nations in particular, Kraken is all around accessible. Coinbase versus Gemini Coinbase is viewed as one of the biggest bitcoin suppliers on the planet, offering its administrations in 32 nations, USA notwithstanding. The installment strategies at Coinbase are PayPal, bank moves and credit/check cards, two more than Gemini. Request bitcoins by means of Coinbase trade Confirmation is an absolute necessity have at Coinbase, much like in Gemini while expenses are a ton lower at Gemini, as you pay between 1.49% to 3.49% from exchange's an incentive at Coinbase. The two trades offer BTC vaults and wallet administrations while Coinbase additionally exchanges with Litecoin which are inaccessible at Gemini. Gemini BTC Exchange in Different Countries Gemini's administrations are accessible in a bunch of nations around the globe, them being the US (5 states not upheld), Canada, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The five US expresses that are not bolstered are Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon and Wisconsin. Gemini trade in various nations Is It Legal? Gemini is an American LLC that adheres to New York Banking Law guidelines, actualizing BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) and AML (Anti-Money Laundry Compliance Program) arrangements, implying that customary reviews of the BSA/AML programs are being executed. Moreover, the firm requires all merchants to have reserves pre-saved before the exchange. Bitcoin Gemini Price, is legitimate Another significant factor of the stage's lawfulness is the way that since its beginning, Gemini has promptly accessible money related report dating 7 years back. Does Gemini Support Its Customers? Concerning the client service, Gemini has a thorough FAQ page where a large portion of the exchanging questions have been replied. Notwithstanding the FAQ, you can likewise top off a shape and present a solicitation to the Gemini group with respect to any issue that you may look on the stage. Gemini client service Because of the regular upkeep of the site's administrations, Gemini has a "Status" page where financial specialists can see which administrations and API instruments are working right now and which are definitely not. Manual for Buy Bitcoins from Gemini When you have gotten the cash at your Gemini account, click "Purchase" button on the dashboard page. Buy page for bitcoins at Gemini Presently, round out the structure on the right, giving request type, volume or estimation of BTC you wish to get and click "Purchase" to get bitcoins in your record immediately. Try to check the BTC cost at the upper left piece of the "Purchase" page to ensure it has not changed at the time you have begun the buy procedure. Enrollment It is totally allowed to enroll a record at Gemini bitcoin trade and the procedure begins once you click "Register" button at the upper right corner of the site. Give your complete name, email address and secret key in subsequent stage and snap "Make My Account". Make account at Gemini You will get an email code which you should duplicate glue into the Gemini's check page. Contribution of enactment code on Bitcoin Gemini Registration The accompanying advances will open up for you to finish, in this way you have to arrangement your 2FA security apparatus, include a financial balance and give checked ID to finish the enrollment methodology. To what extent Should I Wait for Verification? Check stage can take between an hour and a day, contingent upon various enlistment applications Gemini has right now you have begun the procedure. You ought to set up every single essential report before you start and arm yourself with persistence as a stage would set aside effort to process your data. Confirmation process at Gemini Would you be able to Get Bitcoins Without Verification? At the enlistment page, you are required to check your personality and frog your financial balance. When you have presented the records, you can't enter the stage's exchange page until the help affirms your subtleties. In this way, it is unimaginable to expect to buy supply of bitcoins without confirmation. Obligatory confirmation before purchasing BTCs at Gemini How to Add Money to Account? When you have finished the enrollment and confirmation of your record, click button "Move Funds", situated in the top segment of your dashboard page. In following stage, click "Store Into Exchange" and pick either USD or Wire alternative, contingent upon what financial balance you have included at enrollment stage. Add assets to Gemini account You can likewise store bitcoins in your Gemini wallet too. Store BTCs in the Gemini wallet At the last phase of wire move subsidizing process, you have to give bank's wiring data, for example, your record number and other significant data that can be found by clicking "Bank Settings". Give bank's wiring data When data has been given, basically click "Store" button which will show up at the base of the page. Secure Your Account Keep the entirety of your record and wallet passwords out of the programmer's compass by continually evolving them. Monitor the new secret key by keeping in touch with them down on a bit of paper as to not overlook them meanwhile. Record with 2FA on trade You as of now have 2FA from the enlistment stage and don't give your private data to some other dealer on the stage. FAQ To what extent Does It Take to Make Transaction? It takes 4 to 5 days to store assets in your Gemini account while exchanges themselves are done following you the exchange started. Diverse request types have distinctive length, contingent upon what dealer wishes to accomplish. Sitting tight for exchanges on the trade Would i be able to Buy Bitcoin with PayPal at Gemini? Now, brokers can't utilize PayPal as store technique at Gemini. You ought to buy in to the trade's news channel as to get warnings if the strategy opens up to store alternative later on. Does Gemini Have a BTC Wallet? The stage offers two kinds of wallet administrations, one being "hot" wallet and another being vault stockpiling. Both are based just, with the principle contrast being that vault stockpiling gives extra security keys that are utilized while moving bitcoins all through the wallet. Along these lines, vault administrations are esteemed as more secure than the standard BTC wallet. Gemini wallet Pulling back Your Bitcoins from Gemini At the dashboard page, click "Move Funds" and afterward "Pull back From Exchange" to begin the procedure. Pick bitcoins to continue towards the withdrawal structure. Determine the measure of BTC you with to escape the trade and give your wallet address. Snap "Survey Withdrawal" and check the data. When you are fulfilled, click "Affirm" to end the procedure. Your coins will show up inside 24 hours to your ideal area. Pull back BTC from Gemini Instructions to Order BTC with Credit/Debit Card at Gemini As with PayPal, it is preposterous to expect to buy bitcoins with the assistance of credit or charge cards at Gemini, since the choice isn't accessible right now. Stay aware of trade's news and declarations as the CC/DC choice may open up later on. Gemini Mobile App Portable stages are yet to be created by Gemini, implying that exchange is accessible on perusing stage as it were. Watch out for the declaration, as the organization may make the push towards telephone exchange not so distant future. Purchase BTC just on Gemini perusing stage Gemini Analogs Aside from Gemini, we at BitcoinBestBuy have checked on numerous different stages that can assist you with getting bitcoins effectively and securely. They all change regarding local accessibility, expenses, buy strategies and confirmation necessities, so make a point to check different articles also. Get BTC at digital money stages Coinbase Exchange Review Being one of the biggest BTC exchanging stages the world, we made a survey of their charges, store choices and other important data with respect to the trade. We have likewise given bit by bit controls on the best way to buy and pull back assets and coins from Coinbase. Coinbase survey Full Review Coinbase Bitcoin Gemini Exchange Find out About Kraken Kraken is another trade that offers bitcoins through bank moves and its administrations are all inclusive accessible. We made a survey of Kraken's advantages and disadvantages, giving our customers a diagram of the trade as far as expenses the organization charges, check prerequisites and buy procedures of the stage. https://www.cryptoerapro.com/bitcoin-gemini/ http://www.cryptoerapro.com/ https://twitter.com/cryptoerapro https://www.instagram.com/cryptoerapro/ https://www.pinterest.co.uk/cryptoerapro/ https://www.facebook.com/cryptoerapro https://www.facebook.com/pg/bitcoingeminibot https://www.facebook.com/events/282310836080639/
Stellar Lumens HODL alert: 2017 Round up, Partnerships, Lumens vs. Other Cryptos
Welcome everyone! The future of Stellar Lumens is bright! Today we will look at the accomplishments of Stellar.org in 2017. . . 2017 Round Up • IBM / Stellar Partnership • Kik Messenger’s KIN coin to move from Ethereum to Stellar in 2018 • Stellar ATM introduced in Singapore • Jed McCaleb confirms IBM/Stellar has 30 banks on board (Youtube Video) • Lightyear.io enables forward thinking financial entities to easily join the Stellar ecosystem. • IBM adds 8 new validators from 8 different countries onto the Stellar network (article) • Forbes calls Stellar “venmo, but on a global scale - and for larger bodies like banks and corporations.” • Stellar Lumens Is Up 6,300% Since March and Is Aiming for Big Blockchain Partners (article) • Many new partnerships (listed below) that will be using the Stellar network in 2018. • Binance and GoPax Exchanges Adds Stellar • Ledger Nano S support is now available for Lumens (XLM) • The next coin to break into the top 10 cryptos (article) . . 2017 Partnerships & Financial Institutions • IBM - is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM partnered with Stellar to help financial institutions address the processes of universal cross-border payments, designed to reduce the settlement time and lower the cost of completing global payments for businesses and consumers. • SatoshiPay - a web payment system that helps online publishers monetize digital assets like news articles, videos, or PDFs in tiny increments without friction. • EXCH.ONE - is a FinTech software company based in Switzerland currently working to integrate its platform and its first technology adopter Euro Exchange Securities UK Ltd. into the Stellar network. This addition to the Stellar network will bring access to currency markets of South and Central America,UK and a number of EU countries. • Novati (ASX:NOV) - is an Australian-based software technology and payment services provider. Novatti is currently working to integrate it’s platform into the Stellar network with the ultimate aim to build a global money transfer solution to provide cross border, cross currency and cross asset payments. • Pundi X - is an Indonesia based fintech company that provides POS device, debit card, multi-currency wallet that empowers individuals to buy and sell cryptocurrency at any physical store in the world. They say "buying cryptocurrency should be as easy as buying a bottled water." • MoneyMatch - is a Malaysia based fintech startup that provides a fully-digital peer-to-peer currency exchange platform for customers to transfer and exchange foreign currencies with complete ease and at great value. The company plans to integrate with the Stellar network and enable pay in and pay out from Malaysia. • Streami - is a Korea based fintech company that offers blockchain enabled cross-border remittance service and recently launched a cryptocurrency exchange. The partnership extends both on the exchange side and remittance operations. • Neoframe - is developing and marketing trading solutions for big brokerage firms in Korea and extends its business to blockchain based applications. Neoframe developed high performance centralized cryptocurrency exchange as well as secure wallet solutions and is working with big financial players. The company is planning to launch a remittance business for ASEAN countries (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Laos, Brunei) using Stellar. • SureRemit($RMT) - is a Nigeria based global non-cash remittances company. SureRemit leverages the Stellar blockchain platform to connect immigrants abroad directly with merchants that provide the services needed by their loved ones back home. With Remit tokens, immigrants all over the world can access digital shopping vouchers that can be spent on goods and services at accepting merchants wherever they are. • Cowrie Integrated Systems - is a Nigerian based Value Added Service Provider. Cowrie provides services at the intersection between telecoms and finance. Cowrie recently joined the Stellar network to bring novel fintech services to the African market. • Smartlands - is a Stellar-based platform designed to create a new class of low-risk tokens, secured by real, profitable assets in the real-world economy. Smartlands is designed to promote investments in the agricultural sector by allowing investment in individual projects, agricultural companies or indexes of groups of projects. These investments will be fully collateralized by agricultural real estate, other productive assets such as fruit or nut trees or, in some cases, the actual crop. • Klick-Ex - is an award winning regional cross-border payments system delivering financial infrastructure for emerging markets. It has been responsible for dramatic uptake in digital financial services in unbanked regions of the world, and lowering costs for banks, central banks and consumers in low liquidity currencies. Its key presence is in the Pacific and Europe, and it is a founding member of www.APFII.org processing more than 775,000 transactions per second, per billion of population (source). • Mobius - Mobius connects any app, device, and data stream to the blockchain ecosystem. Our simple and easy to use bidirectional API allows non-blockchain developers to easily connect resources to smart contracts and more. The Mobius MVP acts like Stripe for Blockchain by introducing innovative standards for cross-blockchain login, payment, smart contract management, and oracles. The Mobius Team includes David Gobaud, Jed McCaleb (Stellar.org founder), Jackson Palmer (creator of Dogecoin), and Chandler Guo (notorious Bitcoin & blockchain investor). • Chaineum - Chaineum, the first French ICO Boutique, will use the Stellar network for upcoming ICOs. “Chaineum is positioned as the first “ICO Boutique” in France, providing a range of end-to-end services to companies and international start-ups wishing to develop with this new funding mechanism. Chaineum is preparing 8 ICOs by the end of 2017, for European, North American and Asian companies, of which cumulative amount could reach € 200 million." (source) • Poseidon Foundation - Poseidon will simplify the carbon credit market with the creation of an ecosystem built on Stellar.org’s blockchain technology. This technology will prevent double counting of carbon and will be consistent across jurisdictions, making it easier for companies to deliver and measure progress towards their climate targets or other goals such as deforestation-free commitments. • Remitr - Remitr is a global platform for cross border payments, licensed in Canada. Remitr uses the Stellar network for international settlements for businesses as well as other payment partners. Remitr’s own payout network of 63 countries, comprising several currencies, is extended onto the Stellar network. • MSewa Software Solution (MSS) - MSewa Software Solution (MSS) Payments provides a one-stop digital payment service available across the Globe. MSS Payments aims at serving the consumers (Banked, Unbanked and Underbanked) with mobile banking facilities on the move from anywhere by transferring funds in their mobile phone. • PesaChoice - PesaChoice is a leader in international bill payment services for the African diaspora. PesaChoice aims at making international bill payment process easy, seamless, secure, with reasonable and competitive service fees, and up to date technological advances. • SendX - Singapore based SendX, in partnership with Stellar, is the better way to move money worldwide. The SendX team believes that the future of transactions is decentralized and distributed, bringing true equity to everyone across the value chain. • VoguePay - VoguePay, with offices in the United Kingdom and Nigeria, is partnering with Stellar to become the cheapest and most efficient way to send money between the United Kingdom and Nigeria. In the coming months, they expect to expand this service to other selected African countries. • HashCash - Hashcash consultants build financial solutions for banks and financial institutions over blockchain. We leverage the Stellar platform to build products that vastly improve the remittance and payments experience for banks and their customers. Transfers happen lightning fast at a fraction of current rates and operational cost is significantly reduced. HashCash is headquartered in India, with operations across South Asia and the Gulf. . . Stellar Lumens vs Other Cryptocurrencies • Lumens vs. Bitcoin: Jed McCaleb spoke at Distributed Markets in 2017 about the advantages, but more importantly, the disadvantages of Bitcoin. Listen to the talk here. Jed said, “Bitcoin is this awesome innovation. The first thing it does is converts a real world resource, electricity, into a digital asset. So it takes something from the real world and puts it into the digital realm. The second thing it does is provides immutable public record. It’s basically a database that everyone can see but no one change arbitrarily… That’s great, Bitcoin solves the double spin problem [ of proving possession and transmitting volume]… [However, to fix the problems of bitcoin] you might think well maybe we’ll just kind of keep adding [software] to Bitcoin until we get there, but that’s not really the way software works. You want to have the design from the beginning and solve these simple issues. Bitcoin was designed to be a new currency, it wasn’t really designed to be this unifying universal payment network. So that’s what Stellar does. It solves these three remaining issues.” • Lumens vs. Bitcoin #2: According to wired.com, "Bitcoin mining guzzles energy - and it's carbon footprint just keeps growing." Wired says "Today, each bitcoin transaction requires the same amount of energy used to power nine homes in the US for one day... The total energy use of this web of hardware is huge—an estimated 31 terawatt-hours per year. More than 150 individual countries in the world consume less energy annually. And that power-hungry network is currently increasing its energy use every day by about 450 gigawatt-hours, roughly the same amount of electricity the entire country of Haiti uses in a year." Because Stellar is based on a consensus algorithm rather than mining, it takes much less energy to run the Stellar network. The Poseidon Foundation decided to build their platform on Stellar rather than Ethereum or Bitcoin because of this (twitter source). • Lumens ICO tokens vs. Ethereum ICO tokens: According to Stellar.org, "traditionally, ICO tokens have been issued on the Ethereum network in the form of ERC20 tokens. ERC20 tokens are easy to issue and are infinitely customizable using Ethereum’s smart contracting language. However, recent events have highlighted and exacerbated some weaknesses of the network, including slow transaction processing times for the network during ICOs and increasingly expensive gas prices (by fiat standards) for transactions and smart contract execution. Moreover, many organizations require only basic tokens; they adopt the risk of Ethereum’s Turing complete programming language without taking advantage of many of its benefits." "While Ethereum has the most expressive programming capabilities, we believe Stellar is the best choice for ICOs that do not require complex smart contracts. Stellar’s primary goal is to facilitate issuing and trading tokens, especially those tied to legal commitments by known organizations, such as claims on real-world assets or fiat currency." • Stellar vs. Ethereum #2: The median transaction time on Stellar is 5 seconds, compared to approximately 3.5 minutes on Ethereum (source). Stellar has a negligible transaction fee (.00001 XLM ~= $0.0000002) with no gas fee for computation, while depending on the complexity of the computation, the median cost for a transfer on the Ethereum network is $0.094. Security: While both Stellar and Ethereum run on a decentralized network, the Stellar network has fewer security pitfalls. Stellar uses atomic transactions comprised of simple, declarative operations while Ethereum uses turing complete programming capabilities which produces less auditable code and greater risk of exploitable vulnerabilities(source). Recently, a security flaw in the Ethereum network froze millions of dollars. According to Mobius ariticle written by David Gobaud, "On November 6, 2017, Github user deveps199 'accidentally' triggered a bug in Parity, a popular Ethereum mult-sig wallet, that froze more than $152 million in Ether across 151 addresses. The bug impacted several token sales including Polkadot, which has had ~$98 million out of its recent $145 million sale frozen." "Mobius had none of its ongoing pre-sale Ether frozen because we do not trust Ethereum’s Smart Contract based multi-sig wallets given the vast Turing complete attack surface and did not use one. Security broadly is one of the main reasons the MOBI token that powers the DApp Store is a Stellar Protocol token and not an Ethereum token." • Lumens vs. Ripple: According to Wall Street Bitcoin Exchange, "Many investors like to compare the company [Stellar] to Ripple, and there are a lot of similarities, being that some of the founders worked on the Ripple team. In what can now be looked at as another blockchain development drama that plays out on chat boards and in interviews all across the globe. Stellar declared they fixed Ripple’s problems with their hard fork, however, Ripple has failed to admit to any of the flaws in its design that the Stellar team has pointed out." The article concludes by saying, "We Choose XLM Over XRP For 2018. That is why we are going with Stellar Lumens over Ripple in our portfolio for the rest of 2017 and 2018. After holding Ripple for a long time this year, it just never seems to make the big break like other names with bigger market caps like Bitcoin Cash, Dash, and Litecoin have. While we are holding on most all our larger market caps, we feel that Stellar Lumens will be one of the break out coins for 2018." . . Conclusion The stellar.org team is doing an amazing job making partnerships and pioneering the use of blockchain technology for various types of transactions. What we are seeing is a new technology that can actually be used to solve real-world problems. As a community, we need to continue supporting Stellar and we will quickly see it power transactions across the world. What are your thoughts about Stellar? What do you see in the future of Stellar? Any important news you want to share? Comment below.
dcrd: Version 1.3.0 RC1 (Release Candidate 1) is out! The main features of this release are significant performance improvements, including some that benefit SPV clients. Full release notes and downloads are on GitHub. The default minimum transaction fee rate was reduced from 0.001 to 0.0001 DCkB. Do not try to send such small fee transactions just yet, until the majority of the network upgrades. Release process was changed to use release branches and bump version on the master branch at the beginning of a release cycle. Discussed in this chat. The codebase is ready for the new Go 1.11 version. Migration to vgo module system is complete and the 1.4.0 release will be built using modules. The list of versioned modules and a hierarchy diagram are available here. The testnet was reset and bumped to version 3. Comments are welcome for the proposal to implement smart fee estimation, which is important for Lightning Network. @matheusd recorded a code review video for new Decred developers that explains how tickets are selected for voting. dcrwallet: Version 1.3.0 RC1 features new SPV sync mode, new ticket buyer, new APIs for Decrediton and a host of bug fixes. On the dev side, dcrwallet also migrated to the new module system. Decrediton: Version 1.3.0 RC1 adds the new SPV sync mode that syncs roughly 5x faster. The feature is off by default while it receives more testing from experienced users. Other notable changes include a design polish and experimental Politeia integration. Politeia: Proposal editing is being developed and has a short demo. This will allow proposal owners to edit their proposal in response to community feedback before voting begins. The challenges associated with this feature relate to updating censorship tokens and maintaining a clear history of which version comments were made on. @fernandoabolafio produced this architecture diagram which may be of interest to developers. @degeri joined to perform security testing of Politeia and found several issues. dcrdata: mainnet explorer upgraded to v2.1 with several new features. For users: credit/debit tx filter on address page, showing miner fees on coinbase transaction page, estimate yearly ticket rewards on main page, cool new hamburger menu and keyboard navigation. For developers: new chain parameters page, experimental Insight API support, endpoints for coin supply and block rewards, testnet3 support. Lots of minor API changes and frontend tweaks, many bug fixes and robustness improvements. The upcoming v3.0 entered beta and is deployed on beta.dcrdata.org. Check out the new charts page. Feedback and bug reports are appreciated. Finally, the development version v3.1.0-pre is on alpha.dcrdata.org. Android: updated to be compatible with the latest SPV code and is syncing, several performance issues are worked on. Details were posted in chat. Alpha testing has started, to participate please join #dev and ask for the APK. iOS: backend is mostly complete, as well as the front end. Support for devices with smaller screens was improved. What works now: creating and recovering wallets, listing of transactions, receiving DCR, displaying and scanning QR codes, browsing account information, SPV connection to peers, downloading headers. Some bugs need fixing before making testable builds. Ticket splitting: v0.6.0 beta released with improved fee calculation and multiple bug fixes. docs: introduced new Governance section that grouped some old articles as well as the new Politeia page. @Richard-Red created a concept repository sandbox with policy documents, to illustrate the kind of policies that could be approved and amended by Politeia proposals. decred.org: 8 contributors added and 4 removed, including 2 advisors (discussion here). decredmarketcap.com is a brand new website that shows the most accurate DCR market data. Clean design, mobile friendly, no javascript required. Dev activity stats for August: 239 active PRs, 219 commits, 25k added and 11k deleted lines spread across 8 repositories. Contributions came from 2-10 developers per repository. (chart)
Network
Hashrate: went from 54 to 76 PH/s, the low was 50 and the new all-time high is 100 PH/s. BeePool share rose to ~50% while F2Pool shrank to 30%, followed by coinmine.pl at 5% and Luxor at 3%. Staking: 30-day average ticket price is 95.6 DCR (+3.0) as of Sep 3. During the month, ticket price fluctuated between a low of 92.2 and high of 100.5 DCR. Locked DCR represented between 3.8 and 3.9 million or 46.3-46.9% of the supply. Nodes: there are 217 public listening and 281 normal nodes per dcred.eu. Version distribution: 2% at v1.4.0(pre) (dev builds), 5% on v1.3.0 (RC1), 62% on v1.2.0 (-5%), 22% on v1.1.2 (-2%), 6% on v1.1.0 (-1%). Almost 69% of nodes are v.1.2.0 and higher and support client filters. Data snapshot of Aug 31.
ASICs
Obelisk posted 3 email updates in August. DCR1 units are reportedly shipping with 1 TH/s hashrate and will be upgraded with firmware to 1.5 TH/s. Batch 1 customers will receive compensation for missed shipment dates, but only after Batch 5 ships. Batch 2-5 customers will be receiving the updated slim design. Innosilicon announced the new D9+ DecredMaster: 2.8 TH/s at 1,230 W priced $1,499. Specified shipping date was Aug 10-15. FFMiner DS19 claims 3.1 TH/s for Blake256R14 at 680 W and simultaneously 1.55 TH/s for Blake2B at 410 W, the price is $1,299. Shipping Aug 20-25. Another newly noticed miner offer is this unit that does 46 TH/s at 2,150 W at the price of $4,720. It is shipping Nov 2018 and the stats look very close to Pangolin Whatsminer DCR (which has now a page on asicminervalue).
Integrations
www.d1pool.com joined the list of stakepools for a total of 16. Australian CoinTreeadded DCR trading. The platform supports fiat, there are some limitations during the upgrade to a new system but also no fees in the "Early access mode". On a related note, CoinTree is working on a feature to pay household bills with cryptocurrencies it supports. Three new OTC desks were added to exchanges page at decred.org. Two mobile wallets integrated Decred:
Coinomiadded Decred to their Android and iOS wallets. In addition to the Apple App Store and Google Play you can download the APK directly. Coinomi features an integrated cryptocurrency exchange and is the first company to offer a mobile Decred wallet.
Reminder: do your best to understand the security and privacy model before using any wallet software. Points to consider: who controls the seed, does the wallet talk to the nodes directly or via middlemen, is it open source or not?
Adoption
Merchants:
Bit Dialsannounced DCR support via GloBee at their bitdials.eu luxury boutique. Their separate supercar and classic car shop bitcars.eu also accepts DCR, either via GloBee or with manual invoicing in case of privacy concerns.
Sheldon Storere-enabled DCR payments. The shop sells gift cards for Amazon, iTunes, Netflix and many more.
Marketing
Targeted advertising report for August was posted by @timhebel. Facebook appeal is pending, some Google and Twitter campaigns were paused and some updated. Read more here. Contribution to the @decredproject Twitter account has evolved over the past few months. A #twitter_ops channel is being used on Matrix to collaboratively draft and execute project account tweets (including retweets). Anyone with an interest in contributing to the Twitter account can ask for an invitation to the channel and can start contributing content and ideas there for evaluation by the Twitter group. As a result, no minority or unilateral veto over tweets is possible. (from GitHub)
Events
Attended:
Meetup in Puebla City, Mexico, organized by @elian. (photo, slides, missed in July issue)
@joshuam discussed Decred and decentralized organizations with Craig Laundy, Federal Minister for Small Business, the Workplace, and Deregulation with the Australian Government, at @YBFVentures. (photos)
Meetup at @TheBlockCafe in Lisbon, Portugal. @mm presented "Decred 101 - Governance with Skin in the Game" and @moo31337 talked about Decred's 2018 roadmap. (photos: 123)
Meetup in Taipei, Taiwan. @morphymore made a short intro of Decred and noted: "After the talk, many have approached to tell me that they literally don’t hear of Decred until today, and are interested in finding out more about the merit of a hybrid consensus system.". Longer report here, some photos and a video are here.
@eSizeDave introduced Decred to the SILC Undergraduate Program students at @YBFVentures. (photo)
OKEx Global Meetup Tour in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. @joshuam gave a brief presentation covering the history of Decred, how the project functions, and the importance of governance. Afterwards he joined a panel discussion and spoke about Decred's incentives for long term viability. (video, video, photo)
Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto, Canada. @zubairzia0 noted: "Devs and the community were held in high regard for the people who knew about decred ... one positive thing I remember was someone defending us saying 'Decred does not need a booth', I believe that comment was reflective of the quality of projects being showcased at the conference.". (photo)
Meetup at @YBFVentures in Melbourne, Australia. @joshuam discussed Decred with Graham Stuart, U.K. Minister for International Trade. (news, photos)
Small meetup with Jackson Palmer in Melbourne, Australia. (photo)
Voice of Blockchain in Chicago, USA. @moo31337 talked on Protocol Governance panel, Solving Scalability panel (video) and gave an interview, while @ay-p spoke on Decentralized Exchanges panel. Stakey made an appearance on the slides. (photos: 12345)
Hawthorne Street Fair in Portland, USA. Raedah Group was out answering questions about crypto and Decred. (photos)
Blockchain APAC in Melbourne, Australia. @joshuam joined a panel discussion with reps from banking, university and ISO/TC 307. @eSizeDave reports: "This enterprise conference was indeed a whole lot better than I expected. The presentations were actually full of very worthwhile information from credible people, articulated aptly to a very government, academic, and corporate crowd, who genuinely took on board valuable insights. Good to know some of these key people are Decred holders and stakers as well. I got to use the entire day to speak directly with some of the most pivotal personalities in this particular populace. Ongoing relationships have been built and strengthened.". (photos: 123)
For those willing to help with the events:
BAB: Hey all, we are gearing up for conference season. I have a list of places we hope to attend but need to know who besides @joshuam and @Haon are willing to do public speaking, willing to work booths, or help out at them? You will need to be well versed on not just what is Decred, but the history of Decred etc... DM me if you are interested. (#event_planning) The Decred project is looking for ambassadors. If you are looking for a fun cryptocurrency to get involved in send me a DM or come talk to me on Decred slack. (@marco_peereboom, longer version here)
Media
Decred Assembly episode 21 is available. @jy-p and lead dcrwallet developer @jrick discussed SPV from Satoshi's whitepaper, how it can be improved upon and what's coming in Decred. Decred Assembly episodes 1-21 are available in audio only format here. New instructional articles on stakey.club: Decrediton setup, Deleting the wallet, Installing Go, Installing dcrd, dcrd as a Linux service. Available in both English and Portuguese. Decred scored #32 in the August issue of Chinese CCID ratings. The evaluation model was explained in this interview. Satis Group rated Decred highly in their cryptoasset valuation research report (PDF). This was featured by several large media outlets, but some did not link to or omitted Decred entirely, citing low market cap. Featured articles:
Decred Investor Interviews: Ciarán O’Leary, General Partner, BlueYard Capital (medium)
Decred Update Research Report by Node Blockchain (medium), and the corresponding full 11-page report (Google Drive)
Is Decred worth my time and money? by Fabien Pelissier (medium), and the full 13-page Decred Analysis (PDF)
One private work channel was successfully migrated to Matrix.
Stylish room avatars were set.
@Haon has prepared a short guide to help new Matrix users get started and join the Decred rooms.
Highlights:
A thread was started to discuss changes to Decred jargon with the intent to make it more consistent and accessible to newcomers. The question whether changing "official" terminology requires stakeholder approval was touched in this thread and in #documentation.
Project fund transparency and constitution were extensively discussed on Reddit and in #general.
Pre-proposal to use Politeia to approve Politeia as a legitimate decision-making tool for Decred.
Reddit: substantive discussion about Decred cons; ecosystem fund; a thread about voter engagement, Politeia UX and trolling; idea of a social media system for Decred by @michae2xl; how profitable is the Obelisk DCR1. Chats: cross-chain trading via LN; plans for contractor management system, lower-level decision making and contractor privacy vs transparency for stakeholders; measuring dev activity; what if the network stalls, multiple implementations of Decred for more resilience, long term vision behind those extensive tests and accurate comments in the codebase; ideas for process for policy documents, hosting them in Pi and approving with ticket voting; about SPV wallet disk size, how compact filters work; odds of a wallet fetching a wrong block in SPV; new module system in Go; security of allowing Android app backups; why PoW algo change proposal must be specified in great detail; thoughts about NIPoPoWs and SPV; prerequisites for shipping SPV by default (continued); Decred vs Dash treasury and marketing expenses, spending other people's money; why Decred should not invade a country, DAO and nation states, entangling with nation state is poor resource allocation; how winning tickets are determined and attack vectors; Politeia proposal moderation, contractor clearance, the scale of proposals and decision delegation, initial Politeia vote to approve Politeia itself; chat systems, Matrix/Slack/Discord/RocketChat/Keybase (continued); overview of Korean exchanges; no breaking changes in vgo; why project fund burn rate must keep low; asymptotic behavior of Decred and other ccs, tail emission; count of full nodes and incentives to run them; Politeia proposal translations and multilingual environment. An unusual event was the chat about double negatives and other oddities in languages in #trading.
Markets
DCR started the month at USD 56 / BTC 0.0073 and had a two week decline. On Aug 14 the whole market took a huge drop and briefly went below USD 200 billion. Bitcoin went below USD 6,000 and top 100 cryptos lost 5-30%. The lowest point coincided with Bitcoin dominance peak at 54.5%. On that day Decred dived -17% and reached the bottom of USD 32 / BTC 0.00537. Since then it went sideways in the USD 35-45 / BTC 0.0054-0.0064 range. Around Aug 24, Huobi showed DCR trading volume above USD 5M and this coincided with a minor recovery. @ImacallyouJawdy posted some creative analysis based on ticket data.
Relevant External
StopAndDecrypt published an extensive article "ASIC Resistance is Nothing but a Blockchain Buzzword" that is much in line with Decred's stance on ASICs. The ongoing debates about the possible Sia fork yet again demonstrate the importance of a robust dispute resolution mechanism. Also, we are lucky to have the treasury. Mark B Lundeberg, who found a vulnerability in atomicswap earlier, published a concept of more private peer-to-peer atomic swaps. (missed in July issue) Medium took a cautious stance on cryptocurrencies and triggered at least one project to migrate to Ghost (that same project previously migrated away from Slack). Regulation: Vietnam bans mining equipment imports, China halts crypto events and tightens control of crypto chat groups. Reddit was hacked by intercepting 2FA codes sent via SMS. The announcement explains the impact. Yet another data breach suggests to think twice before sharing any data with any company and shift to more secure authentication systems. Intel and x86 dumpsterfire keeps burning brighter. Seek more secure hardware and operating systems for your coins. Finally, unrelated to Decred but good for a laugh: yetanotherico.com.
About This Issue
This is the 5th issue of Decred Journal. It is mirrored on GitHub, Medium and Reddit. Past issues are available here. Most information from third parties is relayed directly from source after a minimal sanity check. The authors of Decred Journal have no ability to verify all claims. Please beware of scams and do your own research. Feedback is appreciated: please comment on Reddit, GitHub or #writers_room on Matrix or Slack. Contributions are welcome too. Some areas are collecting content, pre-release review or translations to other languages. Check out @Richard-Red's guide how to contribute to Decred using GitHub without writing code. Credits (Slack names, alphabetical order): bee, Haon, jazzah, Richard-Red and thedecreddigest.
The biggest announcement of the month was the new kind of decentralized exchange proposed by @jy-p of Company 0. The Community Discussions section considers the stakeholders' response. dcrd: Peer management and connectivity improvements. Some work for improved sighash algo. A new optimization that gives 3-4x faster serving of headers, which is great for SPV. This was another step towards multipeer parallel downloads – check this issue for a clear overview of progress and planned work for next months (and some engineering delight). As usual, codebase cleanup, improvements to error handling, test infrastructure and test coverage. Decrediton: work towards watching only wallets, lots of bugfixes and visual design improvements. Preliminary work to integrate SPV has begun. Politeia is live on testnet! Useful links: announcement, introduction, command line voting example, example proposal with some votes, mini-guide how to compose a proposal. Trezor: Decred appeared in the firmware update and on Trezor website, currently for testnet only. Next steps are mainnet support and integration in wallets. For the progress of Decrediton support you can track this meta issue. dcrdata: Continued work on Insight API support, see this meta issue for progress overview. It is important for integrations due to its popularity. Ongoing work to add charts. A big database change to improve sorting on the Address page was merged and bumped version to 3.0. Work to visualize agenda voting continues. Ticket splitting: 11-way ticket split from last month has voted (transaction). Ethereum support in atomicswap is progressing and welcomes more eyeballs. decred.org: revamped Press page with dozens of added articles, and a shiny new Roadmap page. decredinfo.com: a new Decred dashboard by lte13. Reddit announcement here. Dev activity stats for June: 245 active PRs, 184 master commits, 25,973 added and 13,575 deleted lines spread across 8 repositories. Contributions came from 2 to 10 developers per repository. (chart)
Network
Hashrate: growth continues, the month started at 15 and ended at 44 PH/s with some wild 30% swings on the way. The peak was 53.9 PH/s. F2Pool was the leader varying between 36% and 59% hashrate, followed by coinmine.pl holding between 18% and 29%. In response to concerns about its hashrate share, F2Pool made a statement that they will consider measures like rising the fees to prevent growing to 51%. Staking: 30-day average ticket price is 94.7 DCR (+3.4). The price was steadily rising from 90.7 to 95.8 peaking at 98.1. Locked DCR grew from 3.68 to 3.81 million DCR, the highest value was 3.83 million corresponding to 47.87% of supply (+0.7% from previous peak). Nodes: there are 240 public listening and 115 normal nodes per dcred.eu. Version distribution: 57% on v1.2.0 (+12%), 25% on v1.1.2 (-13%), 14% on v1.1.0 (-1%). Note: the reported count of non-listening nodes has dropped significantly due to data reset at decred.eu. It will take some time before the crawler collects more data. On top of that, there is no way to exactly count non-listening nodes. To illustrate, an alternative data source, charts.dcr.farm showed 690 reachable nodes on Jul 1. Extraordinary event: 247361 and 247362 were two nearly full blocks. Normally blocks are 10-20 KiB, but these blocks were 374 KiB (max is 384 KiB).
ASICs
Update from Obelisk: shipping is expected in first half of July and there is non-zero chance to meet hashrate target. Another Chinese ASIC spotted on the web: Flying Fish D18 with 340 GH/s at 180 W costing 2,200 CNY (~340 USD). (asicok.com – translated, also on asicminervalue) dcrASIC team posted a farewell letter. Despite having an awesome 16 nm chip design, they decided to stop the project citing the saturated mining ecosystem and low profitability for their potential customers.
Integrations
bepool.org is a new mining pool spotted on dcred.eu. Exchange integrations:
Changenow announced the option to buy DCR with fiat.
Two OTC trading desks are now shown on decred.org exchanges page. BitPro payment gateway added Decred and posted on Reddit. Notably, it is fully functional without javascript or cookies and does not ask for name or email, among other features. Guarda Wallet integrated Decred. Currently only in their web wallet, but more may come in future. Notable feature is "DCR purchase with a bank card". See more details in their post or ask their representative on Reddit. Important: do your best to understand the security model before using any wallet software.
TokenPride: "We are seeking feedback on the general setup of our payment processor. We have tried to make it simple and user friendly. 10% of all purchases made in Decred will be donated to the Decred Development fund - and we will be releasing original Decred designs in the future".
BlueYard Capital announced investment in Decred and the intent to be long term supporters and to actively participate in the network's governance. In an overview post they stressed core values of the project:
There are a few other remarkable characteristics that are a testament to the DNA of the team behind Decred: there was no sale of DCR to investors, no venture funding, and no payment to exchanges to be listed – underscoring that the Decred team and contributors are all about doing the right thing for long term (as manifested in their constitution for the project). The most encouraging thing we can see is both the quality and quantity of high calibre developers flocking to the project, in addition to a vibrant community attaching their identity to the project.
The company will be hosting an event in Berlin, see Events below. Arbitrade is now mining Decred.
Campus Party in Brasilia, Brazil. @girino, @Rhama and @matheusd talked about Decred. Matheus was interviewed by a TV channel. Check this quick report about the event, click "Show newer" to continue reading. (photos: 123)
Blockchain Summit in London, UK. This was not a full blown presence with stand but rather investigation of opportunities by @kyle and @Ani. The resulting detailed report is a good example of a document advising to stakeholders whether it is worth spending project funds.
Upcoming:
Meetup in Berlin, Germany on July 18. @jz will give a talk and Q&A about Decred and chat with Ele from @oscoin about incentivizing developers. Hosted by BlueYard Capital.
O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, USA on July 18-19. People wishing to attend this developer focused event can use Decred25 discount code when registering to save 25%. For any questions join #event_planning and contact @Jesiki, she can also invite you to any gatherings in the area.
Hey guys! I'd like to share with you my latest adventure: Stakey Club, hosted at stakey.club, is a website dedicated to Decred. I posted a few articles in Brazilian Portuguese and in English. I also translated to Portuguese some posts from the Decred Blog. I hope you like it! (slack)
@morphymore translated Placeholder's Decred Investment Thesis and Richard Red's write-up on Politeia to Chinese, while @DZ translated Decred Roadmap 2018 to Italian and Russian, and A New Kind of DEX to Italian and Russian. Second iteration of Chinese ratings released. Compared to the first issue, Decred dropped from 26 to 29 while Bitcoin fell from 13 to 17. We (the authors) restrain ourselves commenting on this one. Videos:
Decred Assembly - Ep20 - Governance: Driving the Future (youtube) @cburniske and @traceagain discuss the importance of governance protocols being foundational and problems with delegated proof of stake
"I think that developers in the future are going to base their decision on where to build on the basis of governance and community. And so I look for good governance mechanisms and strong communities in blockchains." (@decredproject)
Featured articles:
What is on-chain cryptocurrency governance? Is it plutocratic? by Richard Red (medium)
Apples to apples, Decred is 20x more expensive to attack than Bitcoin by Zubair Zia (medium)
What makes Decred different and better from other cryptocurrencies? (cxihub.com)
Community Discussions
Community stats: Twitter followers 40,209 (+1,091), Reddit subscribers 8,410 (+243), Slack users 5,830 (+172), GitHub 392 stars and 918 forks of dcrd repository. An update on our communication systems:
Matrix chat logs are nowviewable on the web with the exception of some channels that are not bridged. The new web logs means our chats are now fully public and indexed by search engines.
Slack had an outage on Jun 27 that disturbed communications for a few hours, discussions continued on Decred's bridged platforms.
Jake Yocom-Piatt did an AMA on CryptoTechnology, a forum for serious crypto tech discussion. Some topics covered were Decred attack cost and resistance, voting policies, smart contracts, SPV security, DAO and DPoS. A new kind of DEX was the subject of an extensive discussion in #general, #random, #trading channels as well as Reddit. New channel #thedex was created and attracted more than 100 people. A frequent and fair question is how the DEX would benefit Decred. @lukebp has put it well:
Projects like these help Decred attract talent. Typically, the people that are the best at what they do aren’t driven solely by money. They want to work on interesting projects that they believe in with other talented individuals. Launching a DEX that has no trading fees, no requirement to buy a 3rd party token (including Decred), and that cuts out all middlemen is a clear demonstration of the ethos that Decred was founded on. It helps us get our name out there and attract the type of people that believe in the same mission that we do. (slack)
Another concern that it will slow down other projects was addressed by @davecgh:
The intent is for an external team to take up the mantle and build it, so it won't have any bearing on the current c0 roadmap. The important thing to keep in mind is that the goal of Decred is to have a bunch of independent teams on working on different things. (slack)
A chat about Decred fork resistance started on Twitter and continued in #trading. Community members continue to discuss the finer points of Decred's hybrid system, bringing new users up to speed and answering their questions. The key takeaway from this chat is that the Decred chain is impossible to advance without votes, and to get around that the forker needs to change the protocol in a way that would make it clearly not Decred. "Against community governance" article was discussed on Reddit and #governance. "The Downside of Democracy (and What it Means for Blockchain Governance)" was another article arguing against on-chain governance, discussed here. Reddit recap: mining rig shops discussion; how centralized is Politeia; controversial debate on photos of models that yielded useful discussion on our marketing approach; analysis of a drop in number of transactions; concerns regarding project bus factor, removing central authorities, advertising and full node count – received detailed responses; an argument by insette for maximizing aggregate tx fees; coordinating network upgrades; a new "Why Decred?" thread; a question about quantum resistance with a detailed answer and a recap of current status of quantum resistant algorithms. Chats recap: Programmatic Proof-of-Work (ProgPoW) discussion; possible hashrate of Blake-256 miners is at least ~30% higher than SHA-256d; how Decred is not vulnerable to SPV leaf/node attack.
Markets
DCR opened the month at ~$93, reached monthly high of $110, gradually dropped to the low of $58 and closed at $67. In BTC terms it was 0.0125 -> 0.0150 -> 0.0098 -> 0.0105. The downturn coincided with a global decline across the whole crypto market. In the middle of the month Decred was noticed to be #1 in onchainfx "% down from ATH" chart and on this chart by @CoinzTrader. Towards the end of the month it dropped to #3.
Relevant External
Obelisk announced Launchpad service. The idea is to work with coin developers to design a custom, ASIC-friendly PoW algorithm together with a first batch of ASICs and distribute them among the community. Equihash-based ZenCash was hit by a double spend attack that led to a loss of $450,000 by the exchange which was targeted. Almost one year after collecting funds, Tezos announced a surprise identification procedure to claim tokens (non-javascript version). A hacker broke into Syscoin's GitHub account and implanted malware stealing passwords and private keys into Windows binaries. This is a painful reminder for everybody to verify binaries after download. Circle announced new asset listing framework for Poloniex. Relevant to recent discussions of exchange listing bribery:
Please note: we will not accept any kind of payment to list an asset.
Bithumb got hacked with a $30 m loss. Zcash organized Zcon0, an event in Canada that focused on privacy tech and governance. An interesting insight from Keynote Panel on governance: "There is no such thing as on-chain governance". Microsoft acquired GitHub. There was some debate about whether it is a reason to look into alternative solutions like GitLab right now. It is always a good idea to have a local copy of Decred source code, just in case. Status update from @sumiflow on correcting DCR supply on various sites:
To begin with, none of the below sites were showing the correct supply or market cap for Decred but we've made some progress. coingecko.com, coinlib.io, cryptocompare.com, livecoinwatch.com, worldcoinindex.com - corrected! cryptoindex.co, onchainfx.com - awaiting fix coinmarketcap.com - refused to fix because devs have coins too? (slack)
About This Issue
This is the third issue of Decred Journal after April and May. Most information from third parties is relayed directly from source after a minimal sanity check. The authors of Decred Journal have no ability to verify all claims. Please beware of scams and do your own research. The new public Matrix logs look promising and we hope to transition from Slack links to Matrix links. In the meantime, the way to read Slack links is explained in the previous issue. As usual, any feedback is appreciated: please comment on Reddit, GitHub or #writers_room. Contributions are welcome too, anything from initial collection to final review to translations. Credits (Slack names, alphabetical order): bee and Richard-Red. Special thanks to @Haon for bringing May 2018 issue to medium.
Why support Graft Payment Network? - It's not mere shilling!!
First of all, I kindly request you not to consider this a mere shill. And second, it's known that the name "Graft" has a unintended negative meaning and currently they are looking for rebranding. So let's not cry on the name. Now let's get on. What Graft is trying to achieve is to serve as a payment network like Visa & Master for Cryptos but in a completely decentralized manner. It is offering PoS solutions for merchants through its application that could be used on Verifone terminals (yes the same Verifone terminals we encounter in our day to day lives). Verifone has announced it officially as well. But why Graft? The proposed complete payment system surely has the potential to take on Visa and Master. We see Cryptocurrencies (like Tenx and some other) issuing Visa cards to spend the cryptos. The very essence of Bitcoin's existence becomes an Irony when Visa is used as an intermediary again! Graft's proposed coldpay card will be a great alternative. All the working components of the Ecosystem - [Supernodes (that provide RTA), payin Exchange brokers (to atomic swap cryptos), payout exchange brokers (to settle merchants in USD)], to name a few, everything is decentralized. And with its own blockchain and Masternodes it's highly scalable to handle any future loads on the network. The Ecosystem planning is described in a very detailed manner in its white paper and it's so complete even to handle the merchant loyalty points for customers. Why asking for support now? Just to create awareness as Many would have not heard of Graft because of lack of exchanges at this point of time. Want the exchanges like u/CoinBaseu/binanceu/HuobiCanadau/Bittrex to support the Project like these by evaluating them and listing them for free. The team is delivering on the things with Supernode release on the verge. Sure when Graft hits Verifone terminals it would certainly drive crypto adoption. And it would be boon to the entire crypto community. Support the projects that deserve!!! https://www.graft.network
#PundiX Announces Monthly Activity Recap for April 2019 #NPXS #XPOS #XPASS
https://preview.redd.it/xg99y1fmg5w21.png?width=1532&format=png&auto=webp&s=d34e133f89ee3d2a89bf4d3fe6345f2031f50170 Dear Pundians, We have been pushing and expanding our footprint globally and it wouldn’t have been possible without our community’s strong support, so we like to say thank you to each of you. Last month, our distribution partners launched a limited edition of the XPASS card and extended the reach of our blockchain technology to South Africa. The XPOS became the first blockchain device to receive the CE and TRA certification which will play a crucial part in a number of initiatives which we are rolling out. For more details of activities and progress in April, read on.
New XPOS merchant highlights and distribution partnerships
Torosushi — the Netherlands Now you can spend crypto at a sushi store in the Netherland. Torosushi has brought the XPOS to Almere, where customers can purchase their fresh sushi favorites with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Binance coin (BNB), and Pundi X token (NPXS). https://twitter.com/tayyabpk1/status/1113756691915595776/ More newsstands have XPOS — Brazil In São Paulo, XPOS is fast becoming a common sight as they are being deployed in more places in our effort to make crypto truly more accessible in people’s everyday lives. Next time when you are in São Paulo, don’t forget to use your BTC, ETH, BNB, and NPXS with these XPOS newsstand merchants. https://twitter.com/Pundix_bstatus/1113532182507675648/ https://twitter.com/Pundix_bstatus/1114207450901561344/ https://twitter.com/Pundix_bstatus/1114532031789174784/ https://twitter.com/Pundix_bstatus/1118905452581068805/ https://twitter.com/Pundix_bstatus/1121525512474488832/ Jackscoot — France Jackscoot, a motobike repair shop in Paris, has installed an XPOS to accept crypto payments and enable topping up of BTC, ETH, BNB, and NPXS for their customers. https://twitter.com/ArkadiahF/status/1114636881801744386/ iBank XPASS — Canada Bank Digital, a Canadian-based crypto trading platform and XPOS distributor, has issued a limited edition iBank XPASS with designs based on the paintings of the well-known artist Cao Jun — “Purple Pavilion and Cyan Cloud,” “Once in a Millennium,” and “Spring’s News”. These custom-designed iBank XPASSes will be available during the Consensus Week 2019 in New York. The limited edition iBank XPASS is made possible with the help of iBank Digital, IOST block and Art Impact Foundation through an exclusive collaboration with world-renowned artist Cao Jun. You can pre-order the cards at https://www.ibankdigital.io/ibankxpass https://preview.redd.it/siyprkwki5w21.png?width=697&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f4e827c17f5abba7e2297793ce1cbb7824b7b8e DoshEX — South Africa DoshEX, a digital asset exchange in South Africa, will begin pushing digital transformation through Pundi X technology. A phased roll-out of the XPOS and XPASS cards will be undertaken, with 5,000 cards available for the first wave of early adopters. https://preview.redd.it/tu7vikppi5w21.png?width=583&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b395a8d316348b81d1e9cc54818189d128e84e7 DoshEX CEO Alex de Bruyn noted, “It was essential to roll out trusted and proven technology as our objective is to rapidly build South Africa’s first point-of-sale cryptocurrency network. This is why we have partnered with Pundi X. We believe XPOS will rapidly become your crypto ATM and transaction-enabler at your local coffee shop or high street store.”
Product Development
XPOS is the world first blockchain point of sale smart device to receive CE and TRA certification It is important for blockchain solutions to keep up with the fast pace of technology, but it is even more important for these solutions to be compliant with global health, safety, and environmental protection standards. April saw the first ever blockchain-based point-of-sales (POS) smart device to receive Conformité Européenne (CE) certification in the European Union after Pundi X met all the requirements and standards laid out by the European Economic Area (EEA). In addition, XPOS also received UAE TRA certification through ebooc, our partner in Dubai, to ensure that the rollout of Pundi X technology across the Emirates is in full compliance. https://preview.redd.it/8x1xqxnwi5w21.png?width=577&format=png&auto=webp&s=1edbc195fa01f03a17eba2bfdf82215f263c794a XWallet updated with FX conversion and an added 2FA feature To further assist token holders who are taking part in the NPXS and NPXSXEM conversion, the team has added a new feature in the XWallet app to facilitate the process. After introducing the FX staking mechanism in March, in order to ensure a fairer distribution and allow more people to participate in the conversion, the conversion mechanism has also been updated. The first-come, first-served component is deactivated during the first 20 seconds of each daily conversion period. Another feature added to the XWallet in April is Google Authenticator (GA) which is to achieve maximum security for XWallet accounts. In addition to SMS and Email verification codes, this is an additional two-step verification process to protect your account’s safety by using the One-time Password Algorithm within 30 seconds. The GA code can be used in the login, transfer and change login password options to achieve greater security for your XWallet accounts. To activate the GA verification service, you can follow the steps here. https://preview.redd.it/3r91d381j5w21.png?width=522&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bbb711c52d45f2363a499c491e901f1c9b4256c
Events and Community
World Blockchain Summit in Taipei Pundi X Chief Legal Counsel David Ben Kay went to the World Blockchain Summit held in New Taipei City on April 25 and 26, 2019. He delivered a keynote on how traditional businesses can benefit from digitizing and modernizing payments using blockchain technology. David also participated in a panel discussion with Dimitrios Psarrakis from the European Parliament and Jason Hsu, Taiwan’s Crypto Congressman to talk about the state of regulations and compliance for blockchain startups. https://twitter.com/PundiXLabs/status/1121358800542289921/ Ask Me Anything (AMA) In April, Pundi X CEO and Co-Founder Zac Cheah hosted an AMA session to share the company’s progress in Q1 and the outlook for Q2. Zach shared several highlights and responded to detailed questions which can be found on https://medium.com/pundix/recap-of-ama-with-zac-on-apr-12-b949270292bc. Zac also announced the token removal schedule for 2019. 2019 Token Removal Schedule João Victor Mendes, Pundi X’s LATAM Country Manager, was invited to the telegram AMA session hosted by Binance on April 4 to talk about our development in LATAM markets. He also delivered a keynote about Pundi X and the impact of blockchain technology in retail at Talent Land, the largest tech startup event in Mexico. João also organized an XBlockchain talk at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. https://twitter.com/Pundix_bstatus/1117806748709130240/ NPXS listed on Kucoin and iBank Digital This month also see NPXS traded in more crypto exchanges. NPXS/BTC and NPXS/ETH trading pairs are available on KuCoin and iBank Digital! https://twitter.com/KuCoinUpdates/status/1115891341580484609/ April 1st giveaways Finally, we’d like to give a shout out to all the Pundians who joined in our April Fool’s Day Pranks. We gave away 10 XFANS to the 10 users with the best tweets in response to the question, “Why do you want an XFAN?” We initially allocated only five (5) XFANS for the event, but due to the overwhelming response, we increased the prize to 10 units so more people could enjoy the breeze in the upcoming summer. https://twitter.com/Byte_Produce/status/1122778565337059328/ This is only a glimpse of what happened in April. To catch up with all our latest activities, you can follow our official Pundi X Twitter here.
In case you missed it: Major Crypto and Blockchain News from the week ending 12/14/2018
Developments in Financial Services
A cryptocurrency exchange-traded product (ETP) that trades on Switzerland’s Six Exchange saw record trading volumes on Thursday and Friday last week, suggesting that institutional investors may be buying the dip in cryptocurrencies. Four major cryptocurrencies underlie the HODL ETP, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). While HODL ETP’s one-month average daily trading is 20,000 shares, on Thursday, December 6th, and Friday, December 7th, 53,233 shares and 62.986 shares were traded, respectively.
A report published last week by global anti-money laundering policymaker, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), indicates that cryptocurrency exchanges in the United Kingdom pose a, “low risk,” for money laundering and terrorist financing activities. The report, however, does highlight that such activities on UK cryptocurrency exchanges are an, “emerging risk,” although there is not yet enough evidence to suggest that these activities are occurring through cryptocurrency exchanges. In its report, the FATF urged UK regulators to, “Continue to develop an understanding of emerging risks (such as virtual currencies) and intelligence gaps, and take appropriate action.”
Andreas Utermann, CEO and CIO of Allianz Global Investors, called on global financial regulators to ban cryptocurrencies while speaking at a panel discussion in London. According to a report by Reuters, Utermann said, “You should outlaw it,” while participating in a panel alongside Andrew Bailey, the head of Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority. Bailey responded by saying that Utermann’s comments were, “quite strong,” before adding that cryptocurrencies have, “no intrinsic value.”
Basis, a major US-based stablecoin project, is shutting down its operations and returning most of its funds to investors, according to a report by crypto news outlet The Block. The report by The Block cited, “multiple people with direct knowledge of the situation,” in claiming that the algorithmic stablecoin project, which generated UDS$133mm of funding through private investments in April, will return funds to investors. According to the Co-Founder and CEO of competing stablecoin project Nevin Freeman, Basis’ shutdown is due to regulatory concerns around one of its token types. Freeman explained, highlighting that algorithmic stablecoins implement a “secondary token”, known as a “bond token”, to help maintain the primary token’s peg. In many cases, regulators like the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) consider these secondary tokens to be securities.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, announced that it has added Circle’s US dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), to its combined Stablecoin Market. Circle, a company backed by Goldman Sachs, first released its stablecoin in September of this year. Binance’s combined Stablecoin Market features other notable stablecoins, like Tether (USDT), that trade against cryptocurrencies as interchangeable base pairs.
Coinone, a South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange, has officially launched Cross, a cross-border payments application that leverages Ripple’s xCurrent product to increase efficiencies. The application, released by Coinone’s payments subsidiary, Coinone Transfer, targets unbanked or underbanked South Koreans by enabling the transfer of funds to Thailand or the Philippines at a low cost.
Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange heralded by the Winklevoss twins, released an official company blog post this weekend announcing that the firm will support Bitcoin Cash (BCH) custody and trading. The exchange will support only the Bitcoin Cash ABC network at this time, adding that they, “are continuing to evaluate Bitcoin SV over the coming weeks or months, and we may or may not choose to support withdrawals and/or trading of Bitcoin SV in the future.” Additionally, the company detailed that its listing of BCH is pending regulatory approval by the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Gemini, the cryptocurrency trading platform founded by the Winklevoss twins, announced the launch of a mobile crypto trading application in an official blog post today. Accompanying the launch of the crypto trading app is a new investment vehicle, dubbed, “The Cryptoverse,” that is comprised of a basket of cryptocurrencies weighted by market capitalization. While speaking to Bloomberg today, Cameron Winklevoss said that, “A lot of our decisions have perhaps given off a perception that we’re more institutional-based. The reality of the situation is that we have a diverse customer base. And the retail story is just beginning.” The Winklevoss twins went on to detail of a goal to expand reach to Asian markets by 2019’s end.
Good Money, a US neo-banking platform, has closed its Series A investment round that generated USD$30mm led by cryptocurrency-focused merchant bank Galaxy Digital and the founder of EOS (EOS) Block.one. Good Money aims to provide a variety of banking service and certain financial instruments to US account holders while exploring innovative changes to traditional banking practices. “Modern banking is a primary driver of so many issues we as a society face – from economic inequality, institutional racism, environmental destruction to political corruption,” said Good Money founder Gunnar Lovelace. Specifically, Good Money eliminates ATM fees while offering each bank user equity in the company.
Kraken, a notable cryptocurrency exchange, is seeking to raise funding with a USD$4bn valuation for the company and a USD$100,000 investment minimum, according to CoinDesk. In an email to investors, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell wrote, “There is presently a limited time opportunity available to a very small select number of clients to purchase shares.” The email goes on to detail that the exchange will close its offer on December 16th.
OKEx, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, will begin listing Bitcoin Cash ABC under the original Bitcoin Cash ticker (BCH), as per an official announcement Tuesday. Additionally, OKEx will change the Bitcoin Cash SV ticker from BCHSV to BSV. The announcement by OKEx comes after other notable cryptocurrency exchanges have made the same switch, including Coinbase and Gemini.
PayPal, an online payments portal, has launched its own internal private blockchain platform that will allow staff to trade and exchange tokens while generating ideas and participating in programs to foster innovation, as per a report by news outlet Cheddar. The private blockchain network, which was built by 25 PayPal employees in just 6 months, will allow employees to earn more for enrolling in learning and development programs. The PayPal tokens are not tradeable, or worth anything for that matter, outside PayPal’s blockchain.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a big four consulting firm, is partnering with Bitfury Group, a large blockchain software and mining firm, to develop a blockchain accelerator specific to Russian businesses. As per an official press release by PwC, the partnership will leverage Exonum, Bitfury’s open source framework to build blockchain applications, for educational courses and seminars. The partnership aims to meet the, “current needs,” of PwC’s enterprise clients in Russia.
Revolut, a digital banking alternative with an in-application cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it has been awarded a European banking license. Seeking to become the, “Amazon of banking,” the license will allow Revolut to offer traditional banking services alongside its current cryptocurrency offerings to European customers. Nikolay Storonsky, Founder and CEO of Revolut, said in regards to the newly acquired license that, “With the banking license now secured, commission-free stock trading progressing well, and five new international markets at final stages of launch, we are living up to our reputation as the ‘Amazon of Banking’. Our vision is simple: one ap with tens of millions of users, where you can manage every aspect of your financial life with the best value and technology.”
Shinhan Bank, the second-largest commercial bank in South Korea, is launching a new project to implement blockchain technology in its internal processes with a goal of eliminating human error. According to a report by news outlet The Korea Times, Shinhan also recently completed a training program for its staff to increase their knowledge of blockchain technology across various applications. After Shinhan implemented blockchain technology for interest rate swap transactions on November 30th, South Korea’s second-largest bank is now aiming to apply the technology in its record-keeping process to enhance overall efficiencies.
SolarisBank, Germany’s second-largest and Europe’s ninth-largest stock exchange, is partnering with Stuttgart Exchange Group, a German fintech company, to jointly develop a cryptocurrency exchange. As per a report by Cointelegraph Germany, the joint cryptocurrency exchange venture, “is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2019.” This news comes after SolarisBank announced plans to launch a zero-fee cryptocurrency trading application this past May.
The Canadian city of Calgary is becoming the first city in Canada to launch a digital version of its local currency, according to a report by the Global News. Dubbed as the Calgary Digital Dollar, the digital currency will be exclusive to Calgary and operate alongside the country’s Canadian Dollar. Calgary-based businesses will now be required by law to accept at least 10% of a payment in digital currency, although they are allowed to accept up to 100%.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is launching a pilot of its Global Payment Initiative (GPI) to combat growing blockchain and fintech solutions, according to an official announcement last week. Currently, the SWIFT Network is used by global financial institutions to conduct global financial payments and cross-border transfers of fiat currency. Although the project is still in its early stages, the GPI pilot hopes to, “build the foundation of a new integrated and interactive service that will significantly improve efficiencies in the payments process and which will ultimately be made available to all 10,000 banks across the SWIFT network.”
The United Arab Emirates’(UAE) central bank is partnering with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) to develop a cryptocurrency to facilitate cross border transactions between the two countries, according to a report by news outlet GulfNews. In a meeting pertaining to global banking standards and regulation in the Arab region, Mubarak Rashed Al Mansouri, the governor of the UAE’s central bank, said, “This is probably the first time ever that witnesses the cooperation of monetary authorities from different countries on this topic and we hope that this achievement will foster similar collaboration in our region.” The prospective digital currency will be used by both central banks and financial institutions in the countries.
TokenSoft, a security token offering (STO) startup, has acquired a 20% stake in regulated broker-dealer Marpine Securities LLC in order to launch its own regulated broker-dealer. After acquiring the 20% stake, TokenSoft will launch its new regulated broker-dealer entity, called TokenSoft Global Markets, that will be registered through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The new regulated broker-dealer entity will allow TokenSoft to advise token issuers through every step of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) process. Additionally, TokenSoft will now be able to legally operate in services related to insurance and management.
Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors and a notable cryptocurrency pundit, believes that the current fair value of Bitcoin (BTC) is between USD$13,800 and USD$14,800, according to a note published on Thursday. Lee arrived at this valuation by taking into account the number of active wallet addresses, usage per account, and other supply and demand metrics. Additionally, Lee forecasted that the fair value of BTC will reach USD$150,000/coin once BTC wallets account for 7% of Visa’s 4.5bn account holders.
UAE Exchange, an exchange based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is partnering with Ripple to launch a blockchain-based cross-border remittances platform by 1Q2019, as per a Reuters report on Thursday. The report details further that Finablr, a payments and foreign exchange company that owns UAE Exchange, observes a high level of remittance inflows from expatriate workers in the Middle East region. “We expect to go live with Rippel by Q1, 2019 with two other Asian banks,” said Finablr CEO Promoth Manghat, adding, “This is for remittances to start with, from across the globe into Asia.”
Regulatory Environment
De Nederlandsche Bank, the Netherlands’ central bank, will soon require domestic cryptocurrency providers to obtain a license from the regulator to operate, as per a report by Dutch news outlet DeTelegraaf. The Netherlands' central bank is taking these measures in the hope that it will, “prevent such cryptocurrencies from being used to launder money obtained through crime or to fund terrorism.” In order to receive a license, cryptocurrency firms must maintain Know-Your-Customer procedures and report any suspicious activity to the Dutch central bank.
Eddie Hughes, a conservative member of the United Kingdom’s Parliament, suggested that Bitcoin (BTC) should be accepted as legal tender for tax and utility payments, according to news outlet Express.co.uk. The article discusses that Hughes, who is a self-described, “crypto enthusiast with amateur knowledge,” recently met with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which accepts cryptocurrency donations. This news comes after the US state of Ohio announced that it would begin accepting BTC as legal tender for tax payments.
Following a case in Canadian courts that resulted in a ruling ordering mistakenly sent crypto funds to be returned to their owner, a blog post from the University of Oxford Faculty of Law is noting that there could be repercussions with the case potentially setting a precedent for lost or stolen cryptocurrency claims. The Canadian court case’s ruling will require defendant Brian Wall to return USD$370,482 worth of Ethereum (ETH) tokens to the plaintiff, Copytrack. The blog post from the University of Oxford Faculty of Law reads, ‘This precedent may have major repercussions for the enforcement of claims regarding lost or stolen cryptocurrencies,” adding that the ruling allows the plaintiff to recover tokens, “in whatsoever hands those Ether Tokens may currently be held.”
Japan’s government is considering plans to ease cryptocurrency taxes in an effort to revitalize the domestic cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. This week, Japanese Congressman Takeshi Fujimaki proposed four significant changes to taxation requirements pertaining to digital assets, which include: a reduction on the cryptocurrency gains tax from 55% to 20%; elimination of taxes on crypto-to-crypto payments; elimination of taxes on miniscule cryptocurrency payments; and an adjustment that would allow cryptocurrency investors to carry forward losses across quarters and years, effectively until cryptocurrencies are ‘cashed’ out.
Jay Clayton, Chairman for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC), said during a speech that Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), “can be effective,” for fundraising, but that, “securities laws must be followed.” Clayton went on in his speech to comment on the US SEC’s work regarding distributed ledger technology (DLT), digital assets, and ICOs, saying that it is an, “area where the Commission and staff have spent a significant amount of time,” and, “that this trend will continue in 2019.”
Jay Clayton, the Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), expressed his optimism for distributed ledger technology’s potential impact on traditional financial markets in a testimony before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs yesterday. According to a transcript published on the SEC’s website, Clayton said, “I am optimistic that developments in distributed ledger technology can help facilitate capital formation, providing promising investment opportunities for both institutional and Main Street Investors.” Additionally, Clayton highlighted that the SEC is, “Focusing a significant amount of attention and resources on digital assets and initial coin offerings (ICOs).”
Maxim Akimov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, announced that no significant changes will be made to the draft of a bill concerning cryptocurrency regulation in the country, as per news outlet Finmarket. The bill was already approved by Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, in May 2018, although the bill has generated substantial discussion since. Since approval of the bill, all cryptocurrency and token-related terminology have been removed and replaced with the term “digital rights”. At the beginning of December, Pavel Krasheninnikov, Chairman of Russia’s State Duma, said that the bill needed to be, “significantly,” changed.
Pan Gongsheng, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, highlighted that Security Token Offerings (STOs) in China are illegal while speaking at a summit in Beijing. As per a report by news outlet the South China Morning Post, Gongsheng told the summit that, “illegal financing activities through STOs and ICOs were still rampant in the mainland despite a nationwide clean-up of the cryptocurrency market last year.” In citing reasoning for the continued ban on STOs, Gongsheng explained that, “Virtual money has become an accomplice to all kinds of illegal and criminal activities.”
Pantera Capital, a blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused investment firm and hedge fund, is warning investors that as much as a quarter of their ICO project could potentially be violating US securities laws, according to a Bloomberg report. In a newsletter to clients, Pantera Capital warned, “While we believe the vast majority of the projects in our portfolio should not be affected, approximately 25% of our fund’s capital is invested in other projects with liquid tokens that sold to US investors without using Regulation D or Regulation S”
Russia has no intention of implementing Venezuela’s state-backed digital currency, the Petro, into commercial operations, according to a report by news outlet RIA Novosti. While speaking to reporters this week, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak said, “Representatives from our tax service and central bank... got acquainted with the cryptocurrency Venezuela is introducing,” adding, “But no more than that. As for payments, they’re not happening yet.”
South Korea’s representative body, the National Assembly, held its first official meeting with seven of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges on Monday. The purpose of the meeting was to debate cryptocurrency regulation between stakeholders of South Korea’s cryptocurrency industry. Cryptocurrency exchanges Bithumb, CobitCoin, Coinone, Upbit, Gopax, Coinplug, and Hanbitco were among the attendees of the debate, which reportedly focused on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) customer protections and Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures.
The United Kingdom’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental financial security body, is calling on the country’s government to increase monitoring of cryptocurrency markets. According to an official report last week, the UK must overhaul its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and combat terrorist financing (CFT) efforts in order to prevent illicit activities with cryptocurrencies. “Virtual currency exchange providers are not yet covered by AML/CFT requirements,” the report details, adding, “this is an emerging risk and there is not yet evidence to suggest that broad scale ML/TF is occurring in the UK through this relatively small sector.”
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is interested in learning more about the Ethereum (ETH) network, its technology, and the markets build around it. On Tuesday, the CFTC published a Request for Input (RFI) that requests the public’s feedback on different questions concerning Ethereum. The RFI explains that its goal is to inform the CFTC about Ethereum and similar emerging technology, saying, “The input from this request will advance the CFTC’s mission of ensuring the integrity of the derivatives market as well as monitoring and reducing the systematic risk by enhancing legal certainty in the markets. The RFI seeks to understand the similarities and distinctions between certain virtual currencies, including here ether and bitcoin, as well as ether-specific opportunities, challenges, and risks.”
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC) is ordering that cryptocurrency asset manager CoinAlpha Advisors LLC pay a USD$50,000 fine, alleging that the firm conducted an unregistered securities sale. After forming in October 2017, CoinAlpha raised more than USD$600,000 from investors to invest in digital assets. In an official release, the US SEC said that CoinAlpha did not file a Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities, meaning that the firm breached securities laws by soliciting securities investors. Additionally, the firm allegedly did not adhere to proper know-your-customer procedures to verify that investors were accredited.
Venezuela is reportedly beginning to convert its citizens’ monthly pension payments into Petros, Venezuela’s controversial state and oil-backed cryptocurrency, according to a report by local economics blog the Caracas Chronicles. The conversion of Venezuelan pensioners’ payments into Petros came after the country already sent pensioners their monthly payment in the form of a check for Venezuelan Bolivars -- normally, upon receiving their check, pensioners would deposit their funds into a bank account where they could then withdraw fiat from local branches. The Venezuelan government, however, converted pensioners’ fiat payments into the Petro upon their deposit into a bank. In the first few weeks of the Petro’s existence, its value has risen from 9,000 to more than 15,000.
Warren Davidson, an Ohio Congressman and notable advocate of blockchain and digital assets, is floating blockchain technology as a solution to fund US President Donald Trump’s prospective US-Mexico border wall. While interviewing with NPR, Congressman Davidson suggested, “the American people, or whomever should choose to donate,” could pay for the border wall, adding, “you could do it with sort of like a crowdfunding site or you could do a blockchain and you could have WallCoins.”
General News
“The long-term value of Bitcoin (BTC) is more likely to be USD$100 than USD$100,000,” says Kenneth Rogoff, a former Chief Economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the current Harvard University Professor of Economics and Public Policy. While writing an article for major UK news outlet The Guardian, Rogoff highlighted that, because BTC’s use is limited to transactions, it makes the digital asset more vulnerable to a bubble-like collapse. Rogoff also cited that BTC’s energy-intensive verification processes is, “vastly less efficient,” than systems that leverage, “a trusted central authority like a central bank.”
A new report by PeckShield, a blockchain security company that monitors various cryptocurrency ecosystems, details that decentralized applications (DApps) on the EOS (EOS) blockchain have lost as much as USD$1mm in hacks since July 2018. The report details further that DApps on the EOS network have sustained 27 breaches since July, which are responsible for the up to 400,000 EOS that have been compromised from hacks. Guo Yonggang, a blockchain security expert cited in a report on the matter by crypto media firm Blockchain Truth, believes that the hacks can be attributed to security problems with the DApps themselves, rather than with the EOS network.
A new study published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance on Wednesday finds that the number of unique ID-verified cryptocurrency users nearly doubled in in the first 3 quarters of 2018. The study details that total ID-verified users increased to 35mm in the first three quarters of 2018 from 18mm at the end of 2017, representing an increase of 94%. As per an analysis of the study by Bloomberg, the growth of crypto’s userbase despite the market decline, “could signal that an eventual recovery could be coming.”
Amid the continued cryptocurrency sell-off, only two cryptocurrency mining machines remain profitable, according to real-time data from ASICMinerValue.com. ASICMInerValue.com, which calculates the profitability of Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) miners, indicates that only indicates that only the Ebank Ebit E11++ and ASICminer 8 Nano 44Th mining models are profitable for mining cryptocurrencies based on the SHA-256 hash function -- notable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) use this has function.
Bitmain, a large Chinese cryptocurrency mining firm, announced that it is closing its development center in Israel, citing current cryptocurrency market conditions. In closing Bitmaintech Israel, the crypto mining giant was forced to fire all 23 employees. Among the employees let go is Gadi Glikberg, head of Bitmain’s Israeli branch and Vice President of International Sales, who said on the recent market turmoil, “The crypto market has undergone a shake-up in the past few months, which has forced Bitmain to examine its various activities around the globe and to refocus its business in accordance with the current situation.”
Busan, a major South Korean city, will be the beneficiary of the South Korean government’s plan to spend 4bn Korean won (USD$3.5mm) to establish a blockchain-enabled virtual power plant (VPP). As per a report by South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency, the project will be angled as a national competition in 2019, hosted by South Korea’s largest electric utility, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). The VPP will integrate the idle capacities of multiple energy resources through a cloud-based distributed ledger in order to optimize power generation and decrease costs.
Church’s Chicken, a large international fast food franchise, is partnering with Dash Venezuela to accept cryptocurrencies in its Venezuelan locations. According to an official press release, 13 Church’s Chicken establishments will begin accepting Dash (DASH) as payment following, “extensive and rigorous days of training,” staff to understand cryptocurrencies. With the addition of Church’s Chicken, more than 2,200 establishments in Venezuela accept DASH as payment.
Crypto.com, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency payments platform, announced the appointment of former PayPal executive Tyson Hackwood to serve as the firm’s Vice President and Head of Global Merchant Acquisition in an official press release today. Crypto.com aims to increase cryptocurrency adoption by both merchants and consumers through their point-of-sale (PoS) transaction terminals. Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek believes that Hackwood will be integral in furthering this goal, saying, “As we develop the Crypto.com Chain to fulfill the current industry need to pay and be paid in crypto, Tyson will play an important role in expanding the number and quality of merchants that are part of our network.”
Hyperledger, a notable blockchain consortium, is continuing its robust expansion after announcing the addition of 16 new members at the Hyperledger Global Forum in Basel, Switzerland. Among the notables to join the consortium are, Alibaba Cloud, Citigroup’s Citi Ventures arm, and Deutsche Telekom. The latest addition of 16 members brings the total membership of Hyperledger to more than 260 different companies. In a public statement, Hyperledger Executive Director Brian Behlendorf said that, “The growing Hyperledger community reflects the increasing importance of open source efforts to build enterprise blockchain technologies across industries and markets. The latest members showcase the widening interest in and impact of DLT and Hyperledger."
Jeremy Henrickson, the former Chief Product Officer at Coinbase, has departed the US-based cryptocurrency exchange after serving since July 2016. “Jeremy’s contributions to Coinbase over the past two years were invaluable,” said a Coinbase spokesperson, adding that, “he helped to build our scrappy startup team into a high-functioning product and engineering organization -- overseeing a 5x+ growth of the team.” Henrickson’s departure comes after long-term Coinbase executives Adam White and Hunter Merghart left the US-based cryptocurrency exchange in recent months.
LinkedIn’s, “2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs,” report released on Thursday ranks the role of blockchain developer as the fastest growing job in the United States. The report by LinkedIn indicates that blockchain developer jobs have increased 33-fold in the past 12 months alone. San Francisco, New York City, and Atlanta are among the cities with the highest demand for blockchain developer jobs.
Orbs, a unique hybrid blockchain platform, raised more than USD$15mm in cryptocurrencies to fund its development of a public blockchain, according to a company blog post. South Korean application provider Kakao lead the fundraising efforts with a representative telling CoinDesk that the company, “always seeks to invest and support innovative startups, and Orbs is a good example.” In total, Orbs raised 139,000 Ether (ETH) and 892 Bitcoin (BTC), amounting to roughly USD$15.4mm. Orbs aims to build a public blockchain with this funding that is, “universal,” and, “scalable,” for decentralized applications (DApps) with the, “liquidity of a base layer.”
Samsung has reportedly filed patent applications for three different blockchain-related trademark requests that all pertain directly to smartphones, according to news outlet Galaxy Club. Specifically, the patents named “Blockchain KeyStore”, “Blockchain Key Box”, and “Blockchain Core” all pertain to cryptocurrency custody capabilities on smartphones. This news comes amid the release of HTC’s Exodus 1 and Sirin Labs’ FINNEY, both of which are being marketed as blockchain smartphones with cryptocurrency custody capabilities.
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