Phillip Moskov, Author at CoinCentral

Who is Ross Ulbricht? | A Journey into the Dark Net and Cryptocurrency

Phillip Moskov — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 14:13:08 +0000

Ross Ulbricht is a former dark net operator who is currently in prison for life after creating and administering the Silk Road, an online marketplace where over a billion dollars worth of illegal goods/services were exchanged.

Transactions on Silk Road were completed using Bitcoin for the sake of anonymity. For that reason, Ulbricht is credited with developing one of the first and largest platforms that used cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange. The Silk Road was a pioneering project that took advantage of the fundamental decentralized properties of Bitcoin.

Ulbricht’s Motivation to Create Silk Road

The Silk Road was a product of Ulbricht’s desire to make a successful startup coupled with his libertarian political views. Ross wanted to build a truly free market that was outside the reach of government entities. On his Linked-In profile, Ulbricht wrote “I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force,” claiming this description to be for an online multiplayer role-playing game.

Prior to the Silk Road scandal, Ulbricht had no history of criminal activity. He was a college graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from UT and a Master’s in Materials Science/Engineering from Penn State.

A couple of years after graduating, Ulbricht found himself uninspired with traditional employment and wanted to become an entrepreneur. It’s worth noting that Ross also had a growing interest in libertarian economic theories during those years as well. After limited business success from his existing ventures, Ross began working on his online superstore in 2010 as a side project.

By 2011 the Silk Road was a fully functional platform where users could buy/sell goods and services both legal and illegal, but mostly illegal. A user entering the Silk Road site could expect to immediately see listings for illegals such as drugs or counterfeit money.

Screenshot of Silk Road via Business Insider

Ross was even accused of later hiring a hitman from the site to eliminate a threat posed to the platform’s anonymity. Although this allegation was never part of Ulbricht’s full indictment, the transcript between Dread Pirates and the contracted killer can be a pretty convincing piece of evidence.

The Silk Road did, in fact, have some rules. The site would not allow for the exchange of anything that had the purpose of “harming or defrauding.” This meant that criminal activity like child pornography or the use of stolen credit cards was prohibited. Hiring a hitman, if it did occur, must have been an administrative privilege.

How Did Silk Road Operate?

The Silk Road ran for 4 years and hosted the exchange of over $1.2billion worth of illegal goods/services before getting shut down in 2015. Ulbricht ran the site from San Francisco, California under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts”.

The Dread Pirate was able to keep himself and the site’s users disguised by running the site on Tor browser; an underground virtual network. Tor Browser keeps IP addresses anonymous by bouncing internet traffic among many web servers around the world, making it very difficult to pinpoint any one source.

Furthermore, transactions on Silk Road were kept anonymous with Bitcoin. Hashing algorithms and the lack of a central entity allowed for transactions to be anonymous and virtually untraceable.

The Empire Falls

Ulbricht had a concrete understanding of the tools needed to host a completely anonymous marketplace. The slip-up that led to his imprisonment, however, was rather anticlimactic. Ulbricht posted about his need for an IT professional on a web forum using his real email address.

the FBI arrested Ulbricht in October of 2013. On May 29, 2015 Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted of drug trafficking, computer hacking, and money laundering in 2014.

Ross attempted to appeal in May of 2017 but the court upheld their original verdict.

Silk Road Scandal Implications on cryptocurrency

Ross Ulbricht created one of the earliest and largest platforms that used cryptocurrency as its medium of exchange. The Silk Road is often regarded as a defining event in cryptocurrency history for being an early implementation of the politics embedded in crypto.

The Silk Road Scandal has had both positive and negative effects on cryptocurrency adoption. On the plus side, the Silk Road showcased the security and high-availability of the Bitcoin network. Transactions taking place on the site were being processed anonymously 24/7 for 4 years until the site shut down. Negatively, however, the platform cast a shadow on cryptocurrency by exploiting the potential criminal aspects of Bitcoin’s anonymity. Paying for illegal items was carried out very effectively with Bitcoin.

A less talked-about impact was Silk Road loading up the site’s users with Bitcoins during a time when cryptocurrency was barely on the radar. Bitcoin’s price fluctuated from $100 – $600 during most of the time that the site was active. Just a couple years later, though, the price 30x’ed. Some likely wrongdoers may have cashed out handsomely.

Ulbricht Today

Today Ross is in a high-security federal prison for male inmates in Colorado: USP Florence High.

His indictment, though, has been somewhat controversial. Some believe that Ulbricht’s punishment was excessive for the crimes that he was actually charged with, all of which were non-violent. Unbendingly, Judge Katherine Forrest said she would give Ross “the severest sentence possible,” restrained by law from issuing the death penalty.

The argument of a harsh sentencing was brought up during Ross’s several appeals, but none have had any success. Some people also just sympathized with Ross for the determined and non-violent character he was known to have. Hundreds of letters were submitted to the court on his behalf in an attempt to convince the judge to lessen Ross’s punishment, but the verdict was still double life without parole + 40 years.

His family has been keeping a webpage to garner support for Ross’s case by asking the community to sign a petition in support of his appeal process.

The post Who is Ross Ulbricht? | A Journey into the Dark Net and Cryptocurrency appeared first on CoinCentral.

What is Akoin? | Pushing for Digital Currency and Empowerment in Africa

Phillip Moskov — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 11:12:13 +0000

Akoin is a cryptocurrency launched by music artist, Akon, in June 2018 that envisions to serve as the base of a radical new city that’s under development in Africa. This city is modeled to be 100-percent crypto-based, and is already under construction on a 2000-acre plot of land that was gifted to Akon by the President of Senegal Macky Sall.

Why Was Akoin Created?

Akoin was proposed to help drive youth entrepreneurship in Africa by “crypto-powering” the population.

Akon’s push for an African digital currency is in response to a number of issues that currently suppress the economic prosperity of many individuals in the region.

Some of those issues include:

a lack of banking services for general African populations
fiat currency instability and inflation
perceived governmental corruption (in some regions) that prevents access to basic amenities like easy access to clean water, electricity, etc
limited access to global markets

The lack of banking services and the problem of unstable currency is to be resolved by the independent financial system that Akoin creates. Additional support comes from the new city in Senegal, which isolates the crypto community so that it can progress independently of any potential mishandling by surrounding governments.

How Will Akoin Function?

Akoin as a cryptocurrency is the foundation of a broader ecosystem that involves real life-platforms which bring immediate use-cases to the digital currency.

Akon’s crypto-based city aims to create the infrastructure in which Akoin can thrive. Here businesses will be attracted a whole new pool of consumers that are incentivized to buy, hold, and spend the Akoin cryptocurrency.

The token itself is pegged to stable assets such as mobile minutes, wifi, and solar power to ensure stability for the token’s price as well. Akoin’s token economics are said to give the coin low volatility so that it can be accepted by vendors consistently and unproblematically. The Akoin ecosystem will be compatible only with brands that have certain attributes, including crypto-stability and blockchain-based transparency.

The Akoin platform consists of a digital wallet and sponsored DApps that assist in everyday services such as establishing credit or sharing content.

Akon’s Efforts

After becoming established in the music industry, Akon began using his influence to work towards improving living standards in countries across Africa. Cryptocurrency is his latest endeavor, but the hit singer is also known for his work to bring electricity to various parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Through his Lighting Africa project, Akon has been able to help bring power to over 28 million individuals in 18 different countries across the continent.

Final Thoughts

The attraction of Akoin isn’t necessarily its technological features, but rather the fact that it is the largest push towards realizing digital currency in Africa. Akoin is designed to achieve some of the same key objectives that Bitcoin does, namely bringing financial sovereignty to individuals. However, the token’s niche is that it is a cryptocurrency which is embedded in all aspects of the upcoming Senegal crypto-community.

One of the main focuses of Akoin is to promote entrepreneurship in Africa. Implementing a digital currency can be a very effective step towards furthering the continent’s connection to the global economy. Akon and his team hope that their blockchain project will attract commerce and create business opportunities within Africa.

The Senegal city is set to have the characteristics of any other traditional city; residential buildings, retail stores, schools, etc. The community’s anticipation has led to the nickname for the city: “real-life Wakanda” (after the high-functioning fictional city featured in the Black Panther film.)

It’s evident that Akon has large aspirations for Wakanda and cryptocurrency in Africa as a whole. The project reflects that aspiration and seems like it’s spread across quite a large number of domains – from finance to health/education to entertainment content. Not to mention that Akoin is kickstarting an entirely new city. The initiative is spectacular but we’ll just need to see how the project executes over time and which components of Akoin work best.

The token’s ICO is said to be coming soon but no date has been specified yet.

The post What is Akoin? | Pushing for Digital Currency and Empowerment in Africa appeared first on CoinCentral.

What Is Bit Gold? The Brainchild of Blockchain Pioneer Nick Szabo

Phillip Moskov — Tue, 22 May 2018 15:41:45 +0000

Bit Gold was one of the earliest attempts at creating a decentralized digital currency, proposed by blockchain pioneer Nick Szabo in 1998. Although the Bit gold project was never implemented, it’s often regarded as being the direct precursor to Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin Protocol.

Bitcoin and Bit Gold

There are many similarities between Bitcoin’s architecture and the Bit gold proposal, particularly in the technical mechanisms used to process transactions and secure the decentralized network.

Both Bitcoin and Bit gold are powered by a POW-based consensus algorithm in which computing power is spent to solve cryptographic puzzles. The solution to those puzzles is then processed through a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) peer-to-peer network. Finally, a cryptographic hash chain is created to link the most recent puzzle’s solution to the outcome of the following one, thereby validating blocks of transactions. This process for posting transactions to the network is consistent between Bitcoin and Bit gold.

Bitcoin is distinguished for solving the double-spending problem, which the Bit gold proposal could not at the time. Bit gold’s proposal called for a Byzantine method that relies on a quorum of network addresses rather than a quorum of (hash) computing power. This made the Bit gold network overly vulnerable to Sybil attacks. Bitcoin, on the other hand, added block confirmations to successfully protect against double-spending.

Bitcoin successfully realized the intent of Bit gold and is currently a fully functional protocol, serving roughly 20 million users globally, as of May 2018. The two protocols draw such close parallels that people often speculate about Nick Szabo being the anonymous Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto (despite his denial.)

Why Was Bit Gold Created?

Bit gold was inspired by inefficiencies of the traditional financial system and the use of precious metals as currency.

Traditional Financial System Inefficiencies

Szabo points out that the traditional financial system requires parties to invest a great deal of trust in order for transactions to take place. For example, If somebody were to find a broker to get verified loan, as most secured loans are applied via a broker, and then to accept a loan from a financial institution, the institution must then trust that person with repaying the loan as agreed. Similarly, clients of a bank must trust that their money is properly secured and not being misappropriated by the bank.

Transacting through trust-based systems leaves an opportunity for costly problems such as fraud or theft. A study conducted by Lexis Nexis in 2009 showed that merchants in the United States are losing approximately $190 billion a year to credit card fraud. The traditional financial system’s consistent large cost of losses and siloed architecture motivated Szabo.

Bit gold was introduced to provide a more trustless model for transacting. Szabo’s presentation at the 2015 Bitcoin Investor Conference helped highlight the underlying purpose of Bit gold as being “software to minimize vulnerabilities of all parties to each other.”

When asked about the intent of Bit gold, Nick Szabo explained, “I was trying to mimic as closely as possible, in cyberspace, the security and trust characteristics of gold, and chief among those is that it doesn’t depend on a trusted central authority.” Szabo’s response was describing the defining characteristics of a decentralized network, which Bitcoin successfully implemented a little over a decade later.

Bit Gold as an Improvement to Precious Metals as Currency

Bit gold was an attempt to replicate the economic properties of gold (gold’s unforgeable value) while improving its security properties.

Szabo argues that gold has historically lacked security. He references historical events such as the Spanish looting of the Aztecs and the English looting of the Spanish to acknowledge that physical gold can be acquired through force. Szabo also discusses contemporary political threats, giving the example of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order of 1933, which required Americans to surrender much of their gold to the federal government.

The Bit gold proposal was revolutionary in that it utilized advanced principles of computer science (like encryption) to devise a new, trustless financial system. The proposed decentralized network offers individuals a degree of monetary sovereignty that physical gold could not. Bitcoin expert Trace Mayer describes monetary sovereignty for individuals as “a way that people can hold the private keys to their own wealth.”

Possessing your wealth first-hand is quite directly the purpose of owning gold, but decentralized financial networks, like that proposed by Bit gold, suggest that personal wealth control can be accomplished in a more secure, digitized, and trustless manner.

Benefits Proposed By Bit Gold

Bit gold’s trustless financial model proposed a set of unprecedented benefits for users. In particular, Szabo envisioned two key features of a trustless system:

Independence From Financial Institutions

Through a decentralized Bit gold network, users could transact securely without needing to trust or pay a financial institution to administer those transactions. The Bit gold network itself would provide the functionality of accurately tracking user account balances and processing legitimate transactions. Additionally, users are in possession of the private keys to their own wealth (monetary sovereignty.)

These characteristics in combination meant that transactions and storing money could take place virtually and independently, removing the dependence from financial institutions.

Seamless Operation Across Borders

The traditional financial system has many silos. Sending money across borders can take anywhere from a couple of days to weeks to fully go through. This is because banks must undergo a very rigid and regulated process to send money to other financial institutions before those funds can reach the intended party.

Decentralized networks like Bitcoin and Bit gold remove these silos and create the ability to process cross-border transactions within minutes. Again, these benefits were not realized with Bit gold since the model was never implemented, but are currently being realized through Bitcoin’s Protocol.

Final Thoughts

After discussing the inefficiencies of both precious metals and trust-based financial systems, Nick Szabo puts forth the vision for Bit gold: “Thus, it would be very nice if there were a protocol whereby unforgeably costly bits could be created online with minimal dependence on trusted third parties, and then securely stored, transferred, and assayed with similar minimal trust. Bit gold.”

Key Takeaways

Bit gold was the first feasible proposal of a decentralized financial network.
Nick Szabo conceived of Bit gold after addressing inefficiencies of the traditional financial system and the use of precious metals as currency.
A decentralized financial network (Bit gold) could remove dependence from financial institutions while providing seamless operation across borders
The vision of Bit gold was realized by Bitcoin over a decade later and the two protocols share a very similar architecture.

To find out more, check out Nick Szabo’s Bit gold post on his blog Unenumerated.

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What is Bancor (BNT)? | Beginner’s Guide

Phillip Moskov — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 21:42:53 +0000

What is Bancor?

Bancor is a blockchain protocol that allows users to convert between different tokens directly as opposed to exchanging them on cryptocurrency markets.

The project offers a network, which we’ll discuss soon, that works to bring liquidity to the majority of tokens that lack a consistent supply/demand in exchanges. That network is built on smart contracts and a new class of cryptocurrencies that the team calls “Smart Tokens.”

What Problem Does Bancor Aim to Solve?

Bancor is looking to provide support to the illiquidity that currently exists within the cryptocurrency market. Illiquidity isn’t so much an issue for top coins like Bitcoin or Ethereum because there are always buyers and sellers looking to exchange those coins. It is definitely an issue, however, for the thousands of other tokens that may serve legitimate decentralized purposes but haven’t attracted enough attention in the market to be liquid.

The liquidity of a token is determined by its consistent presence of buyers and sellers. A token with high liquidity is one that you can easily acquire or sell at any particular moment in time. The opposite is true for tokens with low liquidity.

The Bancor team argues that, since a majority of tokens are difficult to exchange, they’re excluded from the internet of value. Their protocol aims to integrate those tokens by helping to establish their liquidity.

The team envisions a future that involves millions of tokens that are highly effective locally, yet tradeable globally.

Smart Tokens and the Bancor Protocol

Bancor’s protocol uses smart contracts to create Smart Tokens, which serve as an alternative mechanism for trading. A key characteristic of the protocol is that it doesn’t call for an exchange of tokens with a second party, as in the case of cryptocurrency exchanges. Rather, it employs Smart Tokens to convert between different ERC-20 tokens internally. These conversions take place through the blockchain’s protocol and completely outside of cryptocurrency exchanges.

Smart Tokens process token conversions internally by holding reserves of other ERC20 tokens within their Smart Contract. They can then convert back and forth between those reserves as users request it.

You can think of Smart Tokens as money that holds money. They hold reserves similar to how a central bank holds foreign currency reserves and converts between them.

The Bancor protocol supports all tokens following Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard. Every Smart Token created is ERC-20 compliant and therefore compatible with all other ERC-20 tokens. We already know that a Smart Token can be instantly converted to any of its connected tokens (reserves). But, it can also be converted to any of its connected token’s connected tokens, and so on. This creates a network of linked tokens that makes for quick and automated conversions.

Bancor Network Token (BNT)

The Bancor protocol has its own native currency, BNT. BNT is the first-ever Smart Token on the Bancor Network and is held as a reserve by all other Smart Tokens. This connectivity allows BNT to significantly reduce the number of conversions needed to arrive at the end token.

Bancor’s Liquidity

Bancor brings liquidity to tokens by removing the need for buyers and sellers to match in order for an exchange to take place (as in the case of cryptocurrency exchanges). Instead, you can make conversions at any time directly through smart contracts on the network.

Bancor’s Protocol guarantees that liquidity by programming a Constant Reserve Ratio (CRR) in all Smart Token contracts. The CRR effectively prevents Smart Tokens from depleting their reserves.

As tokens work their way through different smart contracts, the prices of conversion are calculated by a collection of formulas and algorithms (made available in the project’s whitepaper). These formulas are specifically designed to help ensure conversion rates while avoiding depletion.

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Converting Tokens on the Bancor Network

You can access the network and convert between its supported tokens through Bancor’s web application.

Let’s walk through what a token conversion might look like. Say you want to convert an ERC-20 token like DragonChain to another, say, EOS.

On the web app, you would just need to select these two tokens and click “convert” (assuming you’ve attached a wallet that provides you with some DRGN token to exchange). After you click “convert”, the Bancor protocol initiates a series of requests to different smart contracts. The first request converts your DRGN to a Smart Token that holds DRGN in its reserves. That Smart Token is then liquidated for another Smart Token that holds EOS in its reserve. Once the chain of conversions is complete, you receive the EOS.

Conceptual Real World Use-Case

Say, for example, Dutch Airlines and American Airlines both start using crypto and their respective air mile credits are modeled as ERC-20 tokens. The Bancor protocol, then, would work to allow a user to exchange Dutch Air miles for American Airline Loyalty points without the need for someone wanting to do the exact opposite trade at that moment.

Bancor Team

The Bancor team consists of a core Foundation Council and their Advisory Board. The Foundation Council includes four individuals based out of Zug, Switzerland.

Bernard Lietaer is a Belgian civil engineer, economist, author, and professor. Lietaer specialized in monetary systems and promotes the notion of communities creating their own local currencies.

Eyal Hertzog is the project’s product architect and is noted for co-founding the video-sharing company, Metacafe. Hertzog also co-founded Appcoin, a project similar to Bancor that makes use of user-generated marketplaces and private currencies.

Guy Benartzi serves as co-founder and is recognized for founding the gaming company, Mytopia. Benartzi also co-founded Particle Code, a development studio based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Guido Schmitz-Krummacher is an executive of the Bancor Protocol foundation that’s involved with a variety of commercial entrepreneurial ventures in Switzerland. His involvement in the crypto space includes that of Bancor as well as an executive position in crowdfunding network, Tezos (XTZ)

Tim Draper, well-known venture capitalist and founder of Draper Associates, sits on the advisory board along with 9 other individuals.

Coin supply and sustainability

Smart Tokens can be created or liquidated at any time, adding or removing from the total supply in circulation. Therefore, the token supply fluctuates relative to the conversions taking place on the Bancor network.

As mentioned, BNT is Bancor’s native currency and the first Bancor protocol-powered Smart Token. BNT has a total supply of 74,319,827, but since it’s a Smart Token, the amount of BNT in circulation fluctuates as well.

Transactions of BNT are processed on a level separate to the primary layer of Ethereum’s Casper Proof-of-Stake protocol.

Where Can You Buy and Store BNT?

You can obtain BNT tokens directly through Bancor’s smart contract by converting from any other supported ERC-20 token on the Bancor web app.

Otherwise, you can find BNT on the following exchanges: Binance, Bittrex, Gate.io, HitBTC, OKEx, Liqui, Upbit, LATOKEN, COSS, AEX, and Tidex.

You can also store BNT on most popular wallets such as MyEtherWallet, Parity, and imToken.

Final Thoughts

The Bancor Protocol ultimately exists to bring liquidity to niche tokens so that they may have a place in global markets. Bancor makes it easier to acquire or liquidate tokens that have low trading volumes while helping them establish a market price.

If the cryptocurrency space does progress towards a system involving a large number of locally-effective tokens, Bancor could very well be a central figure for exchanging those currencies.

Key Takeaways

Smart Tokens are user-generated assets created by smart contracts on the Bancor Network.
Smart Tokens serve as a medium for converting between different ERC-20 tokens
Bancor converts tokens through smart contracts rather than exchanging them with a second party.
The mechanism of converting through Smart Tokens was introduced to help bring liquidity to under-represented tokens.

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What is DragonChain? | Beginner’s Guide

Phillip Moskov — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 20:36:21 +0000

What is DragonChain?

DragonChain, originally developed by Disney in 2014 as the “Disney Private Blockchain Platform,” is an open-source software that empowers businesses to build and deploy their own blockchain applications.

What Does DragonChain Do?

In simple terms, DragonChain aims to help companies integrate blockchain technology into their business operations. The platform facilitates the creation of Smart Contracts and decentralized applications (DApps), providing businesses with the potential for more secure and efficient customer transactions, while also minimizing the risk of fraud and scams.

In more technical terms, DragonChain provides the serverless ecosystem that enables businesses to use blockchain applications in a private and secure manner. The platform aims to give businesses a “turn-key” product that is compatible with the development stack that companies are accustomed to using- like Java, C++, and Python. With this compatibility, businesses are able to build their own smart contracts on the DragonChain platform using common programming languages.

From the DragonChain whitepaper, we can see a complete list of the DRGN ecosystem’s attributes:

Serverless system and smart contracts
Established language support for smart contracts (Java, Python, Node, C#, Go, etc.)
Scalable – Amazon AWS and Google deployments
Secure – Protection of business data and operations
Advanced currency implementations
Smart contract libraries
Currency Agnostic

These key properties, discussed in more detail later, create the infrastructure that allow businesses to run their decentralized applications. Together, these properties are advertised to deliver lower development costs, faster speed to market for projects, increased scalability for those projects, and significantly heightened levels of security.

How Does DragonChain work?

The DRGN ecosystem consists of three key components:

1) The DragonChain Platform

The Platform can be thought of as the backend aspect of DragonChain that stores and secures business-client data. This is where developers can create and store Smart Contracts in common programming languages. Also included in the platform is access to Amazon Web Services (a subsidiary of Amazon.com providing on-demand cloud computing platforms).

2) The DragonChain Crowd-Scaled Incubator

The Crowd-Scaled Incubator is where companies can go to develop their blockchain projects by following DragonChain’s standardized process.

The incubator’s “crowd-scaled” feature aims to significantly increase exposure for company projects. The way it works is, after a business develops their blockchain project in the incubator, they can have it reviewed and scaled by a crowd consisting of individuals/investors from all over the world.

DragonChain’s website includes a section where businesses can apply to enter the incubator:

At the time of writing, DragonChain has 5 projects under incubation: Look Lateral – Liquid Art, Seed2You, LifeID, IDPay, and ClevX.

More information on each of these projects is available in the DragonChain whitepaper.

3) The DragonChain Marketplace

Lastly, the DragonChain Marketplace is a support system for client companies. Here clients can access a pool of verified Subject Matter Experts on topics like crypto, marketing, and software development. Also found in the Marketplace is a library of pre-developed smart contracts for clients to use or build on.

Together, these 3 components (Platform, Incubator, and Marketplace) make up the DragonChain ecosystem. The ecosystem is fueled by the Dragon Coin (DRGN), a token that is micro-licensed to serve as credit for each of the service components.

What Sets DragonChain Apart?

DragonChain is aiming to provide a solution to the issue of existing platforms restricting the creation of truly secure and scalable blockchain applications in real-world business use cases.

Ethereum, for example, provides customers with an ecosystem that runs Dapps and Smart Contracts. DragonChain serves a similar purpose, but is designed to be more secure than the Bitcoin and Ethereum protocols.

DragonChain’s whitepaper makes a point to emphasize the level of security proposed by their blockchain:

Included in the DRGN platform is a system of five standardized levels of consensus. Security increases as the verification level for a block increases. These five levels are:

Business (Approval) Verification
Enterprise (Validation) Verification
Network Diversity Verification
External Partner (Notary) Verification
Public Checkpoint Verification

This form of layered security works to add another dimension to the common blockchain model. DragonChain suggests thinking about their levels of consensus model as a “blockchain of blockchains.”

Which Industries Does DragonChain target?

Since the blockchain aims to replace traditional contracts and payment systems with a more secure process, industries that currently suffer from fraud/scams have high potential to benefit. This means that companies dealing in real estate or law, for instance, could remove significant losses to fraud by creating Smart Contracts within DragonChain’s ecosystem.

Another potential use case is found in the gaming industry. FlowPlay, a gaming company with over 75 million users, wants to use DragonChain tokens to allow gamers to safely purchase virtual items. This will effectively create the first non-trust based marketplace for virtual goods, guaranteeing legitimacy.

A few more intuitive use cases of the platform include auditing, booking/reservations, and voting systems. To see a full list, reference this page made available by Disney.

Who’s on the DragonChain Team?

The DragonChain team is comprised of eight members with Joe Roets as the CEO and Chief Architect of the protocol. Roets formerly worked for Disney before leaving to commit full-time to the development of DragonChain. Joe Roets is also noted for his involvement in projects at Coinbase and Overstock.

The team’s 7 other members include four core developers and three business/marketing professionals. More information on each member and their involvement is available on the DragonChain website.

The DragonChain team boasts a noteworthy advisory board, with Jeff Garzik standing out as a key advisor. Garzik is regarded as an established icon in the Bitcoin network and founded the blockchain company, Bloq. Another notable advisor is Ed Fries; VP of game publishing at Microsoft and Co-Founder of Xbox.

Token Distribution

Total Supply: 433,494,437 DRGN

Circulating Supply: 238,421,940 DRGN

The DRGN coin was offered on October 2nd, 2017 at $0.0663 USD at the ICO and surpassed $4 by January of 2018.

Public tokens make up 55% of the total tokens with the remaining 45% distributed accordingly:

Dragon Slumber Score

DragonChain offers benefits for those that hold their coin in the form of a Dragon Slumber Score. The more DRGN coins you own and the longer you hold them, the higher your “Slumber Score” will be.

A higher Slumber Score rewards you with a greater extent of the following benefits:

discounts on Smart Contracts available in the DragonChain marketplace and on future tech products from DragonChain
bonuses for future company ICO’s

Where Can I Buy DragonChain?

DRGN is not mineable, but you can purchase it on the following exchanges:

KuCoin

EtherDelta

CoinExchange

Gate.io

Tidex

Bancor Network

Token Store

Many of the exchanges on this list are rather uncommon, leaving room for potential price jumps if DRGN gets adopted by larger exchanges like Binance. Of the exchanges on this list, KuCoin has the highest trading volume for DRGN by a large margin. Using KuCoin in this case then will allow your DRGN trades to be fulfilled quicker and with more price stability.

Where to Store DragonChain?

DRGN is an ERC-20 token so there are several options for where to store it, namely in an ERC-20-compatible wallet. For those storing their tokens in an online ERC-20 wallet, DragonChain recommends using MyEtherWallet or “MEW”.

If you’re looking for a more secure and offline method to store DRGN coins, you should look into using a hardware wallet like Trezor or the Ledger Nano S. Both wallets support all ERC-20 tokens including DRGN.

Final Thoughts

DragonChain’s platform is establishing a niche within the crypto world with the introduction of its layered security model. The 5-layer security system adds significant credibility to DRGN’s ability to tackle the overall challenge of helping companies integrate blockchain technology into their business operations.

Additionally, DragonChain’s business model is seen as a potential strong rival to Ethereum because of the platform’s ability to scale- an issue that has notoriously plagued Ethereum’s protocol. From a financial standpoint, if DragonChain is to rival Ethereum, then DRGN’s market capitalization has plenty of room to grow. At the time of writing, Ethereum’s market cap is roughly 120 times that of DragonChain’s.

As of January 2018, the DragonChain team is raising funds and finishing development of the platform. Although the exact date is currently unannounced, the DRGN platform is expected to fully launch later this year.

The post What is DragonChain? | Beginner’s Guide appeared first on CoinCentral.

How to Convert Altcoins to USD and Other Fiat Currencies

Phillip Moskov — Sat, 06 Jan 2018 03:48:26 +0000

Converting Altcoins to US Dollars and Other Fiat Currencies

The simplest way to cash out your altcoins to USD and other fiat currencies is by going through an exchange that supports fiat conversions. A second exchange is necessary because, unlike Bitcoin, altcoins are not readily convertible to fiat currency.

As it stands, only a select few tokens can be exchanged for fiat currencies. Additionally, only a handful of cryptocurrency exchanges can make this trade for you. The need to convert to the proper coin and navigate through multiple exchanges can make cashing out a confusing process.

Follow these simple steps to safely cash out your coins and deposit the funds directly into a bank account.

Step 1: Selecting a fiat-friendly exchange

The first thing that you’ll need to do is find an exchange that has a pairing for your desired fiat currency. The 3 most common fiat currencies available to convert to are (USD, EUR, GBP).

Coinbase and GDAX are two common exchanges that people use to cash out with because they support the 3 most popular fiat currencies. Many also use Gemini and Kraken to exchange their alts for fiat currency.

When deciding which exchange you will use to cash out with, consider 1) the available coin-fiat currency pairings and 2) the cost of any Exchange Fees associated with making transactions.

Step 2: Identifying a Pairing With Your Desired Fiat Currency

Once you’ve selected an exchange, open the market to see the possible cryptocurrencies that can be converted to fiat. For example, here is what the pairings might look like on GDAX:

So, in this exchange, you can convert Bitcoin, Ether, or LiteCoin to the fiat currencies: USD, EUR, or GBP.

Step 3: Selecting a Coin to Convert With

After identifying your pairing options, it’s time to select one that will cost you the least money to cash out with. For example, many people prefer to convert with Ethereum rather than Bitcoin because Bitcoin has a significantly larger Network fee associated with each transaction. You want the combined total cost of your Network Fees and Exchange Fees to be as low as possible because having more money is fun.

Step 4: Exchanging Your Altcoins

After identifying your most cost-effective pairing, you can go ahead and exchange your altcoins for the cryptocurrency in your pairing. For example, if you’re cashing out 10,000 Golem (GNT), you’ll have to “sell” your GNT for Bitcoin or Ethereum. This will most likely be done on the market that currently holds your altcoins.

Step 5: Transferring to the Fiat Exchange

After setting up an account with your desired fiat-compatible exchange, locate the provided public key. Use this public key to send the coins that you just converted to from your previous exchange to the fiat exchange (here’s a tutorial for how to transfer coins from one exchange to another)

Step 6: Sell Your Coins and Cash Out

On the fiat exchange, navigate to the pairing that has your coin and desired fiat currency.

Select the option to sell on this pairing and enter your desired quantity and price. Place the order.

When the market allows for purchase of your coins, the funds will become available immediately in your fiat-exchange account. Simply withdraw those funds into your linked financial account.

Now that your coins have been fully converted into fiat currency, your money should be available on the fiat exchange.

Final Thoughts

Be aware of the costs you will incur from Network and Exchange fees during this process. You can use the image below to plan your most cost-efficient route for converting altcoins to fiat currencies:

Investors should also understand the potential tax liability associated with trading or converting cryptocurrencies.

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