Businesses can use Ontology without previous knowledge of distributed networks ar use blockchain technology. When Chinese company Onchain launched Ontology in 2017, there were virtually no ways for businesses to integrate blockchain into their infrastructure without extensive knowledge of blockchain.

As well, current trust networks face a variety of issues. Poor privacy protection, untapped data value, data management monopolization, and ineffective identity authentication are all opportunities for blockchain. Ontology seems to resolve these issues with its solid trust ecosystem.

Through the tools Ontology created, corporations can implement trust mechanisms and tailor them to their business needs. Essentially, its blockchain protocol opens the door for the global adoption of blockchain technology in corporations. It eliminates the learning curve and offers mass customization.

In Ontology’s words:

“Ontology is a blockchain/distributed ledger network which combines a distributed identity system, distributed data exchange, distributed data collaboration, distributed procedure protocols, distributed communities, distributed attestation, and various industry-specific modules. Together this builds the infrastructure for a peer-to-peer trust network which is cross-chain, cross-system, cross-industry, cross-application, and cross-device.”

Ontology and NEO are perfect partners in a hungry race to digitize our world. Take a look at the video above for a pretty good overview of the project.

About the NEO/ Ontology Relationship

Last November, a crowd of blockchain enthusiasts and investors assembled in New York City. They came to hear Onchain, a company dedicated to developing blockchain systems, announce the launch of the groundbreaking platform, Ontology.

“Not only did we bring the best industry minds together, but the Ontology launch brought our project to the world stage” CEO of Onchain and NEO co-founder Da Hongfei said at the event. “Ontology and NEO will build a broad ecosystem using blockchain and other new technologies to serve the real economy. ”

The official website of Ontology lists Jun Li as the Founder of Ontology, and his LinkedIn lists him as the co-founder/ chief architect of Onchain.

However, the crypto community has often confused the roles of projects among each other. It should be clarified that NEO does not own Onchain nor Onchain own NEO. In a Youtube interview, Da Hongfei clears up the confusion with the companies roles.

“First, I need to clarify that NEO and Onchain are separate entities, so Onchain doesn’t own NEO, or NEO, Onchain. They are separately funded – NEO is funded by the community, and Onchain is funded by a very famous financial group in China, Fosun. They bought a lot of insurance companies and banks in Europe. So they are separate. Second, Onchain benefits from the NEO ecosystem. The product, called DNA, is very similar to NEO, but it is written in the Go language. OnChain is helping other blockchains and financial institutions to build their blockchains with DNA. It’s basically very similar to NEO, and in the future, with NEOx (the cross-chain protocol) everything can be linked together.” – Hongfei

Ontology Trust Network

• Chain 1: Verification of people, wealth, things, and organizations.
• Chain 2: Verify applications and link them together
• Chain 3: Verify and link modules, protocols, SDK’s and API’s
• Chain 4: All the different networks chains. This layer functions to link all the chains together.

As stated in the whitepaper, “in order to meet the needs of different industries, the flexible design structure is modularized, pluggable, and easily expandable.”

What this means is that Ontology is attempting to be universally adaptable for a wide range of functions. They hope to be the go-to source for verifying the accuracy and authenticity of things like identity or ownership. Companies like Facebook will be able to easily plug into Ontology for trust.

ONT Token Structure

ONT was airdropped to NEO holders in March 2018. From this airdrop, 20 million ONT were distributed to the community by the NEO Council.

There will be a max supply of 1 billion ONT tokens which are indivisible, and you’ll get Ontology GAS (ONG) from holding ONT (similar to how NEO GAS functions). Ontology had previously awarded 1,000 ONT tokens to everyone who signed up to their newsletter (which is now closed).

More breakdown of the token distribution:

• 12% will go to the Ontology community
• 28% for institutional partners
• 10% to the NEO Council
• 25% to the development of the Ontology ecosystem
• 10% to Ontology technical community rewards
• 15% to Ontology core team.

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Where Can You Buy and Store Ontology?

ONT never had a public ICO sale, and was released exclusively as an airdrop to NEO holders that held NEO by March 2018. 

Today, ONT is available on most popular exchanges, and storing it is pretty simple. For example, Guarda Wallet makes it possible for users to simply “create an Ontology Wallet” that seamlessly integrates into their other holdings. 

Hardware wallets Ledger Nano S and Trezor also offer ONT capabilities. 

Final Thoughts: Following Ontology’s Journey

According to its whitepaper, “sociologists put the number of people we trust at less than one hundred”, showing that for most people, it takes time and effort to trust someone and get to know them. Ontology is looking to replace the current lengthy ways we gain trust and bring us forward with blockchain automation of trust.

Ontology will also work together with NEO to bridge the gap between blockchain technology and the real world. While NEO and Ontology have similar goals, NEO focuses on digital assets and a global Smart Economy whereas Ontology focuses on trust, identity, and data exchange, and authorization. Think of NEO and Ontology like peanut butter and jelly. They are mutually beneficial and put together, they make a tasty sandwich.

Finally, the team behind Ontology comprises of reputable cryptocurrency industry leaders with an already established history of success. And unlike many other blockchain projects, the Ontology team isn’t just targeting the financial industry. They’re focusing on insurance, government, medicine, IoT, and other industries during its growth, making it a wide-scale project with plenty of potentials.

With a relatively long-term presence in the blockchain industry and with a clear vision for the project, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to see Ontology work hand-in-hand with NEO to revolutionize the way many businesses run.

The post What is Ontology (ONT)? | Beginner’s Guide appeared first on CoinCentral.

As well, in the past four years, hackers have run off with billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency, successfully targeting industry leaders such as Bitfinex, Poloniex, and Bitstamp. And, on many of these trading platforms, users sometimes wait months to have their accounts verified in order to start trading.

Needless to say, CEX’s come with major issues and risks. Among security threats, heavy fees, looming geographical regulations that threaten to shut them down, and other factors, it’s apparent that such exchanges offer a subpar product. In the eyes of the crypto community, decentralized exchanges (DEX’s) are the answer to many of their counterparts drawbacks.

What Exactly is a DEX, & How is it Different From a CEX?

There are many different types of decentralized exchanges, but a simple way to explain a DEX is as a platform that facilitates the peer-to-peer (P2P) trading of cryptocurrency from one wallet (that gives you control of your keys) to another. Instead of giving funds to a CEX, you give them to an escrow-like service such as a smart contract (used on the Ethereum blockchain) that conducts the transaction.

Essentially, DEX’s remove the need for a third-party. Benefits include skipping the Know Your Customer (KYC) verification process, avoiding withdrawal/trading limits and heavy fees, and mitigating the risk of someone hacking the exchange and stealing your tokens.  

CEX systems like Coinbase require you to trust a single entity to protect your funds/information and properly execute trades. With an IOU style system in place, you only ever control your funds when you withdraw them into a private wallet.

Using a DEX ensures you’re always in control of your private keys and therefore your coins. Because CEX’s don’t give you your private keys, you are essentially relying on the faithfulness of its employees to properly manage your funds.

Mt. Gox is the classic example. Hackers and the misappropriation of funds led to investors losing over $450 million altogether. Users lost their investments, and the CEO went to jail.

Moreover, single points of failure in centralized systems put users at risk of being unable to access their accounts, making them wait for the issue to be resolved. Because DEX’s use a decentralized system, there is no single point of failure, and operations can continue to run smoothly in case of events such as natural disasters or maintenance updates.

It’s obvious DEX’s outperform their centralized counterparts. So, who are the movers and shakers revolutionizing the way we trade cryptocurrency? Let’s take a look at a few companies making DEX’s a reality.

AirSwap

Brooklyn-based startup AirSwap is a decentralized, P2P trading platform in which the core interaction is held privately between two people off-chain. Running on the Ethereum blockchain, anyone (despite geographic location) can use the trading platform and settle transactions on-chain.

Airswap is unique in that it doesn’t use an order book. Instead, it uses a system called “intent to trade.” By avoiding the order book system in which buy and sell orders are displayed to all users, AirSwap removes the market manipulating practice of frontrunning. Ultimately, trading becomes fairer and particularly favorable to market makers.

Because AirSwap runs on the Ethereum blockchain, ERC20 tokens (which are more suitable for P2P transactions because they all use the same transfer protocol) are able to be traded by a “maker” and a “taker”. The maker displays which tokens they are willing to trade on the “indexer” and the taker fills the order.  With the help of an “oracle” that uses APIs to aggregate prices, the maker and taker can negotiate a fair price.

The only requirement to announce a trade on the indexer is that a maker must hold AirSwap tokens (AST), which gives the token its value. Beyond purchasing AST tokens for announcing intents to trade and to pay gas prices, there are no fees.

Kyber Network

Like AirSwap, Kyber Network follows an Ethereum-based protocol and removes order books. Unlike AirSwap, it offers instant liquidity by leveraging multiple reserves. And, instead of negotiating privately P2P, Kyber Network users know the conversion rate beforehand and then decide if they want to proceed with the trade.

It also offers payment APIs from which merchants are able to accept any ERC20 token and have it automatically converted in the cryptocurrency of their choice. So, if a merchant sells a shirt and wants to receive ETH, but the customer wants to pay in Tronix (TRX), the merchant will receive ETH upon the customer’s purchase of the shirt with TRX.

Since there are no fees on the exchange besides the gas cost, the Kyber Network and “reserve contributors” (mostly market makers) are able to receive profits from a spread. Third party reserves are managed by “reserve managers” who can set their own price for the token pairs they support.

The “Kyber Contract” enables the best rate from all the reserves to be used for each transaction. To ensure reserve managers don’t take advantage by implementing false exchange rates, off-chain and on-chain mechanisms are in place to detect dubious activity and stop unfair transactions from occurring.

In order to gain profits from the spread on the platform, reserve contributors need to purchase the Kyber Network Crystal (KNC). A small amount of KNC from each transaction are removed from the contributor’s reserves and sent to the Kyber Network platform. After covering operational expenses, the remaining KNC collected are burned, which increases the value of KNC.

In the future, the team plans on introducing advanced financial tools such as options and forwards. They also plan on implementing cross-chain trading, allowing for cryptocurrencies on two different blockchains (like bitcoin and ether) to be exchanged without the need for a third party.

0x

Founded in 2016, 0x follows an open-source, permissionless protocol that provides the architecture for the development of DEX’s using smart contracts. Basically, it allows anyone to operate a DEX, a feature its founders believe is needed in the future of mass tokenization and current interoperability between DEX’s.  

Like AirSwap, 0x goes off-chain when matching trades and goes on-chain for ERC20 transaction settlements. Unlike AirSwap, 0x uses an order book and not an indexer. The way its protocol functions, it seems that 0x is tailored more towards quicker orders/smaller transactions while AirSwap is tailored more towards market makers.

As well, 0x lets anyone (most likely going to be developers) be a relayer. A relayer hosts order books publicly or privately to match makers and takers (known as broadcast orders) off-chain, incentivized by charging fees in 0x’s native currency (ZRX) for their services. Those who hold ZRX are also able to vote on the governance of 0x, further bringing value to the ZRX token.

Point-to-Point orders enable makers to generate and send orders through basically any communication medium, such as email or Facebook messenger, to a specific taker. The taker receives the order and then decides if they want to cryptographically sign (fill) it or not. Security is guaranteed as only the taker’s designated address is permitted to take the order.

Using the Point-to-Point method allows makers/takers to bypass relayer fees found in broadcast orders. Right now, the 0x team has a product called 0x OTC, a P2P DEX in which ERC20 tokens can be traded without a relayer.

Waves

A big selling point of Waves’ DEX is that it allows users to not only trade cryptocurrencies but also offers gateways for withdrawing and depositing fiat currencies such as the US dollar, the Euro and Turkish Lira. As most crypto traders know, there are few exchanges that offer users to go in and out of fiat like Coinbase and Gemini allow. Yet, these CEX’s come with high fees for their lucrative services. Waves offers a low cost, fixed fee of 0.003 WAVES per transaction, regardless of size.

Like AirSwap, Waves protects users from frontrunning by concealing orders. Using “matcher” nodes, orders are paired off-chain in a centralized server and then executed on the blockchain for an added layer of security and fairness.  

Looking to make passive income? Waves can help you earn interest through mining. According to their site, “Waves use a Proof-of-Stake algorithm in which the WAVES you own (or that have been leased to you) reflect your mining power. The more you own, the higher your chances of processing the next block and receiving the transaction fees as a reward.”

However, you need a minimum of 1,000 Waves for this feature. The other way to earn passive income with fewer funds is by utilizing their “Leased Proof-of-Stake (LPoS)” protocol, which enables users to lease any amount of WAVES to a node.

Last but not least, the Waves DEX enables you to create your own custom token and then trade it in a trading pair with any other Waves token. According to their website, no technical skills are necessary for a user to create the custom token in as little as a minute.

Honorary Mentions:

• EtherDelta
• Future OmiseGo DEX
• Future Binance DEX

Conclusion

When it comes to DEX’s UX design, they still have plenty of work ahead compared to CEX’s. As well, CEX’s trump DEX’s in their ability to accept fiat currency, customer service, and generally high liquidity.

However, the lack of account verification wait times or deposit/withdrawal limits, user anonymity, low fees, borderless structure, enhanced security, and 24/7 uptime are just a few of a long list of advantages of DEX’s.

Taking the recentness of blockchain technology and more particularly DEX’s into account, one should consider the massive strides accomplished in the industry. With what they intend to accomplish, banks and middlemen could be a thing of the past. Remember, DEX’s are a work in progress, and the future towards decentralized economies is underway.

The post Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs): The Future of Trading Cryptocurrency appeared first on CoinCentral.

The Bears are Back in Town

The cryptocurrency market slipped even further into recession this week.  With a total market cap of $258bln, it’s down 20% from the $320bln in value it carried going into this week.  This is the lowest the entire market has been since November, 24th 2017.

Yep, we’ve turned back the clock and dialed prices back to 2017 levels.  Too bad this valuation was on the come-up last year–now it’s just the hangover of the market’s meteoric rise.  While it’s not necessarily a good feeling to be at our lowest lows in four months, perhaps this most recent precipitous drop tells us that we’re nearing a bottom.  But we’re not out of the woods yet.

Bitcoin: Nearly mirroring the market’s own movements, granddaddy Bitcoin is down 21% on the week, dropping from a humble $8,600 to an even humbler $6,720.

Ethereum: Ethereum is fairing even worse.  At $377, the second most popular cryptocurrency is down 28% over the seven day period from its $528 asking price at the beginning of the week.

Ripple: Number three on our list is performing better than usual.  Well, better is relative, here, as it’s still down 21% at $0.50 from $0.64, but it hasn’t recorded the largest price decrease of the bunch as it has in other bear weeks

Domestic News

2018 Will Be the Year Whales Make “All Hell Break Loose”: Bill Barhydt, CEO of crypto investment app Abra, predicts that “all hell will break loose” in the cryptocurrency world as western institutional money begins to explore crypto assets. “I talk to hedge funds, high net worth individuals, even commodity speculators. They look at the volatility in the crypto markets and they see it as a huge opportunity,” Barhydt stated. Nonetheless, the CEO remains bullish on virtual currency.

Search for Crypto Jobs Decline as Prices Fall: According to the employment search engine Indeed, in parallel with the decline of cryptocurrency prices, crypto-related job searches have decreased as well.  “Over the last year interest in cryptocurrency jobs on Indeed has risen strongly. However, in recent months the prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been volatile and (in some cases) declining,” the company said. “Job seeker interest on Indeed for bitcoin and cryptocurrency jobs has fallen, too.” Although cryptocurrency and bitcoin job searches have declined, blockchain-related searches remain steady.

OmiseGo Donates $1 million to Refugee Charity: Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and OmiseGo, a fintech startup, recently donated $1 million to GiveDirectly, a charity dedicated to providing no-strings-attached grants to the extremely poor. The donation is set to go towards a new campaign in Uganda which will provide more than 12,000 refugee households a grant to facilitate business growth and other opportunities.

Reporting Crypto Activities Is An Obligation, Says US Futures Self-Regulator: The U.S. National Futures Association issued a reminder that CPOs, CTAs, and IBs who either trade, advise or solicit orders in cryptocurrency or cryptocurrency derivatives need to report all cryptocurrency activity. “This is an ongoing obligation,” the SRO said. The reminder comes a couple months after the notices were addressed in December of last year.

Cybersecurity Firm HackerOne Hires Former U.S. Justice Department Prosecutor/Crypto Expert: HackerOne, known for their “bug bounty” program, is ramping up its cryptocurrency profile with a new addition to their team – Kathryn Haun. A former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor and current board member of Coinbase, Haun also had a hand in prosecuting figures linked to the drug market Silk Road, and BTC-e. At HackerOne, she plans on helping bridge the communication gaps between technologists and developers on one hand and policymakers on the other.

Ford Patent Imagines Crypto Transactions Between Vehicles: Paying your way through traffic might just become a reality. Ford Motor Company has been awarded a new patent that includes a way for cars to communicate with each other and even use token currency as a transaction aid to buy passage and preferences. “The CMMP system operates with individual token-based transactions, where the merchant vehicles and the consumers’ vehicles agree to trade units of cryptocurrency,” reads the patent.

Cybersecurity Firm Finds Covert Crypto-Mining Infecting Customers: Cybersecurity firm Darktrace has detected hidden crypto mining on the networks of around 1,000 of its clients.  In one case, they found a rogue employee of a European bank had set up a “crypto-mining side business” under the floorboards after finding puzzling traffic patterns within. The firm specializes in using artificial intelligence to discover and respond to data breaches.

Twitter Joins the Crypto Ad Band-wagon: Following suit with other social media platforms like Facebook and Google, Twitter has begun banning cryptocurrency ads. “We are committed to ensuring the safety of the Twitter community,” the company says. “Under this new policy, the advertisement of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and token sales will be prohibited globally.” Twitter’s new policies are designed to discourage opportunities for fraud and deception.

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What’s New at CoinCentral?

What is Riot Blockchain ($RIOT)?: A look into Riot Blockchain Inc. ($RIOT), the first NASDAQ listed company that focuses exclusively on bitcoin and blockchain-based companies.

Don’t Let the Markets Fool You: Bulls Run Amok: Don’t let the downward trend of today’s markets distract you from the still red-hot investment world. In 2017 alone, venture capitalists and other investors put $1.06 billion into the industry.

Bitfract Announces Private Beta Release: Normally, rebalancing your portfolio can be a tiresome, expensive process. If your trading strategy involves keeping a balanced portfolio, you may find this tool useful.

Multinational Crypto Organization to File Lawsuit Against Tech Companies for Ad Ban: A coalition of cryptocurrency and blockchain organizations won’t be taking big tech’s recent ban on crypto-related ads sitting down. Who will judges side with?

What is AST?: AST, or the AirSwap Token, is the membership token of the AirSwap decentralized exchange. The folks at AirSwap call the present iteration of their decentralized exchange (or DEX) the AirSwap Token Trader.

How to Buy Digital Art: From Rare Pepes to Anime, blockchain and technology are expanding what we think of as art and how we share art in the modern era.

What is Gnosis (GNO)?: Check out this beginner’s guide on Gnosis, a prediction market platform built as a decentralized application (dapp) on the Ethereum network.

Europol Busts Cybercrime King Pin Responsible for Laundering €1bln with Cryptocurrency: Earlier this week, Europol, the European Union’s leading law enforcement agency, recently apprehended the ringleader of the hacking group responsible for stealing more than €1bln from over 100 financial institutions worldwide.

What is IAMA Coin?: Find out more about IAMA (or I am a coin), a collection of both physical and digital artwork by Kevin Abosch.

Controversy Turns to Closure as Litepay Shuts Down: According to a blog post released this week by the Litecoin Foundation, Litepay CEO Kenneth Asare is ceasing all operations in preparation to sell the company.

The Top Six Blockchain Art Projects: In this article, we’ll take a look at six of the most popular blockchain art projects and how the artists behind them are using blockchain technology in their works.

The Cryptocurrency Ad Ban: Gain insight into why some of tech’s largest companies have been leading a crusade against cryptocurrency-related advertising on their platforms.

Blockchain’s Fight Against Fake News: With the growing ease of communication, fake news and false stories are now spreading quicker than ever. Learn how blockchain is attempting to curve this annoying trend.

What is Pura?: While every cryptocurrency would argue they’re trying to make the world a better place, Pura reserves 10% of every block reward to do exactly that.

What is Anime Coin (ANI)?: Learn more about Anime Coin, a project offering a platform for users to issue and sign, hold, and exchange anime-related digital items on the blockchain.

Why are So Many ICOs Failing?: ICO’s aren’t dead. The fact is that there are many ICOs that emerged in 2017 and early 2018 due to the overall market hype, and many don’t have the strategy to last.

Binance Moving to Malta: The most popular cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance, is making their move to Malta.

International News

Belarus Legalizes All Crypto-Related Businesses: In an effort to become a global leader in blockchain innovation, the small country of Belarus enacted regulations essentially legalizing the crypto industry. Signed by President Alexander Lukashenko, Decree №8 offers tax breaks (such as no taxes for mining profits), visa waivers, and other incentives to attract blockchain firms.

The U.K.’s Financial Regulator Warns of Possible Scam: According to the report, “we believe this firm has been providing financial services or products in the UK without our authorisation. Find out why to be especially wary of dealing with this unauthorised firm and how to protect yourself from scammers.” Olsson Capital, which runs out of Bulgaria, is said to be targeting UK investors with their crypto trading services.

Two Trading Platforms in Japan Set to Close Amidst Regulations: Tokyo GateWay and Fukuoka-based Mr. Exchange are two of the most recent Japanese exchanges set to shut down as regulators tighten their grip. In the wake of a $500 mln theft of NEM in January, increased oversight in the sector has put pressure on exchanges to register with the FSA and improve their relatively poor security. Upon closing, the two exchanges are required to return all investor funds.

South Korea May Have Crypto Payments Options by 2019: Generally known for their love of tech, South Korean consumers may soon be able to spend their crypto at over 8,000 retail shops. Teaming up with digital payment provider Korea Pay, major exchange Bithumb announced it will soon offer a payments solutions service for its customers wishing to pay using their crypto wallets. From cafes to candle shops, businesses of all types and sizes are expected to join in on the virtual currency revolution.

Denmark’s Largest Bank Deems Crypto Too Risky to Trade: In the report, Danske bank states “we have a negative position towards cryptocurrencies and strongly recommend that our customers refrain from investing in the field.” Due to high volatility, a lack of transparency, and overall lack of consumer protection, the bank ruled out the option for its customers to buy crypto related financial instruments, such as exchange-traded notes. Nonetheless, customers can still use their Danske credit cards to make cryptocurrency purchases.

China’s Central Bank Thinks Crypto Threatens its National Currency: In a meeting highlighting China’s monetary gold and silver achievements, the People’s Bank of China addressed possible risks to the Chinese yuan, including “the development of digital economy”. While the vice governor of the bank Fan Yifei celebrated the banks increase on digital currency research and development, he highlighted one of their top priorities is to protect the yuan from virtual currencies through strict policies.

Canadian Lending Institution Bans Customers From Investing In Crypto: Lending institution Bank of Montreal (BMO) announced March 28th that its customers can no longer conduct credit, debit and online payments on cryptocurrency trading platforms. According to the bank, “this decision was made due to the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, and to better protect the security of our clients and the bank.”

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The post This Week in Cryptocurrency–March 30th, 2018 appeared first on CoinCentral.

“When the praises go up, the blessings come down,” Chance the Rapper tells us.  Well, we best hope he’s right, because the cryptocurrency market could use a lil providence right about now.

Sitting at a $336bln market cap last Friday, the market dropped to $275bln by Sunday, only to steadily rebound for the rest of the week following the G20’s cryptocurrency-focused summit.  Until yesterday, the market cap climbed above its position from the prior week, but after losing a couple $10bln, it’s at $324bln, a 3% loss from last Friday.

Not the biggest recorded loss by any means, but it shows that the market is still teetering on the edge.  Right now, it’s waiting for a tipping point–whether that be up or down is anyone’s guess. That said, it could also find some balance by trading at a less volatile equilibrium.  Some sideways price action would be a blessing for the coming weeks, so feel free to say some prayers for a little consolidation and a flat-lined price chart.

Bitcoin: At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading for $8,570, a whopping 1% increase from its $8490 price coming into this week.  But hey, it’s still in the green, and that’s something to be thankful for.

Ethereum: Ethereum hasn’t faired so well compared to big bro Bitcoin.  Last week, it came into Friday morning trading strongly at $622. Now, it’s at $526, a 15% decrease over the seven day period.

Ripple: This week, Ripple’s price action is smack in the middle of crypto’s top two.  With an asking price of $0.64, it’s down 8% from the $0.70 it sported last Friday.

Domestic News

Twitter’s CEO Believes Bitcoin Will Be the World’s Sole Currency: “The world ultimately will have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be bitcoin”, said Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey. He strongly believes that in the next ten years, updates like the Lightning Network will help bitcoin overtake competitors. Dorsey has already contributed $2.5 million towards an SF startup focused on advancing the Lightning Work.

There Will be a Universal Payments Network by 2028, Says Jeb McCaleb: CTO and co-founder of Stellar Jeb McCaleb doesn’t know which blockchain network will dominate the universal payments system in the future, but he does believe it will involve a “public ledger that people can see and can’t change arbitrarily”. Currently, McCaleb is attempting to set up such a network through Stellar.

IBM Announces Blockchain Starter Plan Solution For Businesses: IBM recently unveiled their new product that allows anyone to build distributed ledgers. In an email with CNBC, general manager of Blockchain at IBM Marie Wieck wrote: “our expertise in building and scaling networks is invaluable and will be shared across a wide ecosystem.” IBM made it clear they will focus on distributed ledger technology, not cryptocurrencies.

Roughly 50% of 2017’s ICO’s Have Already Failed: It turns out everyone who warned you to be wary of ICO’s were right. According to a study by Bitcoin.com, out of 902 crowd sales which took place in 2017, 142 didn’t make it past the funding stage and 276 since failed. When calculated, it amounts to 46% of all ICO projects having already entered the crypto graveyard.

Stellar Looks to Adopt the Lightning Network: One of the market’s top 10, Stellar Lumens, will begin integrating Lightning Channel’s protocols onto its network.  The announcement comes less than a week after Lightning Labs released a beta for Bitcoin’s LN. “In order to keep the network efficient and stable,” Stellar founder Jed McCaleb said regarding the developments, “we need something like Lightning.”

Congress Issues Bullish Report on the Benefits of Blockchain: In a routine economic report, the United States Congress praises the potential of blockchain technology for legacy industries.  “Blockchain technology offers a decentralized, secure, and efficient way to store almost any form of data across multiple platforms. Developers, companies, and governments recognize the potential and have already starting to implement blockchains for many different uses,” the report read. “From applications ranging from management of the electrical grid and utilities to how companies manage global supply chains, the potential for blockchain is truly revolutionary.”

Trump Officially Bars Citizens from Using Venezuelan Petro: Venezuela is currently holding an initial coin offering for the Petro, its very own commodity-backed, state-sponsored cryptocurrency.  Ironically, Trump has now domestically sanctioned an alternative currency that was made specifically to circumvent US sanctions. In response to the petro’s ICO, Trump signed an executive order that prohibits citizens both in the US and its territories from purchasing or holding the Petro.

Payza Pinned with Money Laundering, Ponzi Schemes: Ferhan Patel, co-founder of Payza, a payment processor out of the UK, was arrested in Michigan earlier this week.  The arrest comes as the result of a November 2016 court order that sues Payza for “[operating] a money transmitting business that operated without the necessary state licenses and knowingly transmitted funds that were derived from illegal activity,” such as Ponzi schemes and child porn. Payza began offering XRP and ETH through its purchasing services last year.

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Will Other Distributed Ledgers Replace Blockchain?: Should we replace blockchain with something else? That’s a question many technologists are asking in the wake of scaling challenges for key blockchain platforms.

Pablo Escobar’s Brother Is Creating A New Cryptocurrency: Pablo Escobar became known as “The King of Cocaine” during the 1980s. Now, his brother Roberto hopes to become successful in a different industry: cryptocurrency.

What is Veritaseum (VERI)?: Is it a scam? Is it legit? “At it’s [sic] simplest, Veritaseum is the gateway to peer-to-peer capital markets,” the project’s website proclaims.

What is HOT?: HOT is the token of the Hydro Protocol. It has nothing to do with heat or fire but does improve liquidity by providing incentives for professional market makers.

Blockchain Agriculture Will Change Farming & Food: Learn more on why blockchain could be the key to making real, organic, locally-sourced produce affordable and available to everyone.

Russia Potentially Helped Venezuela Launch Petro to Dodge U.S. Sanctions: As TIME suggests, the Russians may have used Venezuela as an experiment to test a decentralized currency without the risk of bringing down their ruble.

How to Accept Cryptocurrency in Your E-Commerce Store:  In this article, we show how to integrate e-commerce blockchain and highlight the benefits of accepting bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) on your online shop.

What is Rivetz (RVT)?: Find out how this project can provide an unprecedented level of certainty of intention behind each transaction.

[Upcoming Event] Global Blockchain Forum, April 2nd – 3rd: The upcoming Global Blockchain Forum conference will be at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, featuring billionaires Tim Draper and more.

What is GameCredits (GAME)?:  A beginner’s guide to a cryptocurrency project that wants to become the single payment solution for the online gaming industry.

With Blockchain, Ownerless Businesses are on the Horizon: How effective can a business really be if most decisions need four levels of approval before you can take action? Welcome blockchain.

What is Abra?: Check out more about the investment app founded on the Litecoin Network.

Blockchain Art Provenance & the Future of Digital Art: A digital artist could sell tokenized, certified art to mitigate the effects of forgery and prove the true owners of original, artist-sanctioned pieces. Find out more about how blockchain will affect the art industry.

What is Zclassic (ZCL)?: Zclassic is a perfect example of what happens when you clone a coin, remove a development budget and turn it into a community-driven free for all

ICO Review: OPEN Platform: Learn more about OPEN,  the first blockchain payments infrastructure for applications.

Off to the Races: The Four Cards Competing to be Crypto’s Top Payment Option: In this article, we break down the top projects working to get cards in your hands and spendable crypto in your pockets.

Twitter Frauds, Market Manipulation, and Shoddy Exchanges: An informative piece on common cryptocurrency scams you need to watch out for.

International News

No, Sierra Leone Didn’t Run The World’s First Blockchain-Based Election: The National Electoral Commission Sierra Leone denies publications claiming it held its recent presidential election with blockchain technology. In a Tweet, the commission said it uses “an in-house database to tally election results” and “does not use Blockchain in any way”. The false narrative seems to stem from a Swiss blockchain company named Agora, whose CEO congratulated the country for using blockchain technology in their election.

pic.twitter.com/8cLMVvQPkQ

— National Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (@NECsalone) March 19, 2018

No Cocaine Here Folks; Pablo Escobar’s Brother Launches Cryptocurrency:

Maybe he’s changed his way, or maybe it’s just another profit-making scheme from the ultra-wealthy Escobar family. Either way, Roberto Escobar is launching his own cryptocurrency which is said to be similar to bitcoin. Named “diet bitcoin”, Roberto states he’s made over $100 billion dollars in his career and this digital asset will be another success, adding “buy as many diet bitcoins as you can afford, the value will be very high soon.”

15-Year-Old British Boy Hacks “Tamper-Proof” Crypto Wallet: France-based hardware wallet startup Ledger has claimed for years that it’s cryptocurrency wallets had no vulnerabilities to hackers. Recently, teenager Saleem Rashid proved the Ledger claims wrong, and posted on his blog how criminals can steal the private keys physically or remotely. Good news for Ledger’s main competitor, Trezor, we guess.

South Korea Plans to Legalize ICOs Again: According to The Korea Times, “the financial authorities have been talking to the country’s tax agency, justice ministry, and other relevant government offices about a plan to allow ICOs in Korea when certain conditions are met”. If the source (who preferred to conceal their identity) is telling the truth, the news will be a major turnaround for the South Korean government who deemed last September were illegitimate.

Binance Makes the Move to Malta: Following compliance warnings sent by Japan’s Financial Services Agency, Binance, one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, is relocating to Malta.  According to Binance’s CEO, the Hong Kong-based exchange hopes that Malta’s progressive attitude towards cryptocurrencies specifically and FinTech at large will foster a healthier culture for the less-than-a-year-old company.

Honored, sir! Part of my original quote to Bloomberg that was left out of the article. “Malta is very progressive when it comes to crypto and fintech. We think it is a good place for other crypto businesses to look into as well.” https://t.co/cBZJnEgUGk

— CZ (not giving crypto away) (@cz_binance) March 23, 2018

Russia May Have Given Venezuela a Hand With the Petro: A Time’s article published on March 20th claims that Russia assisted Venezuela with the launch of its national cryptocurrency, the Petro. According to TIME’s source, an executive at a Russian state bank who deals with cryptocurrencies, “senior advisers to the Kremlin have overseen the effort in Venezuela, and President Vladimir Putin signed off on it last year.”  While unconfirmed, the accusation is far from surprising, though it does paint a more complex picture for the state of US and Russian relations, especially in light of President Trump’s Petro ban.

UK Government Looks to Create Cryptocurrency Task Force: Philip Hammond, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, is set to reveal plans for the UK’s new cryptocurrency task forks, reports from this Thursday suggest. Apparently, the task force will include the Treasury, the Bank of England, and the Financial Conduct Authority.  The developments are anticipated alongside other FinTech discussions at the second annual International FinTech Conference hosted by the British government.

In Korea, Banks Being Probed for Exchange Corporate Accounts: As originally reported on Yonhap news, the South Korean Financial Intelligence Unit and Financial Services Commission will launch an investigation into domestic banks that offer corporate accounts to cryptocurrency exchanges.  The probes are meant to ensure that all banks are complying with the government’s anti-money laundering regulations.

Colin Harper coauthored this post*

The post This Week in Cryptocurrency –March 23rd, 2018 appeared first on CoinCentral.

Legends Room LV calls itself the “the world’s only #Bitcoin night club in #Vegas”, and paying in digital assets like bitcoin or the clubs native currency, the LGD, is apparently very popular with patrons. By scanning temporary QR code tattoos located on the dancer’s bodies, you can pay and tip for any of any of their services.

Being the only strip club that offers this digital payment option is a big draw for customers says the clubs founder, Nick Blomgren. With the popularity of cryptocurrency rising, Blomgrens noticed a change in clientele mentality. “In the beginning, it was like a lot of bitcoin guys came in…nobody really thought that the club existed in the beginning. So now it’s, it’s become like curiosity.  Let’s go down there and see if we can use our cryptocurrency.”

Another draw is that with its relative anonymity, cryptocurrency payments allow customers to hide their visits to the club from their partners. “It’s the best place to spend it if you don’t want your wife to know or you don’t want your boyfriend to know,” Blomgren said in an interview with LasVegasNow.

And it’s not just the owner who is a major proponent of using cryptocurrency at the club. Dancer Breanna Sparks, who became interested in blockchain at the young age of 19 (she is now 26), claims that crypto payments offer a unique selling position along with advantageous tech benefits. “It’s peer to peer. It’s anonymous, and it’s instant,” Sparks said.

Other employees believe the technology can empower those working in the adult entertainment industry to take back control of their finances. According to adult entertainment worker Summer Chase, “there are certain banks that… will shut down your account and actually deny you from having an account because we work in the adult entertainment industry.”

Even the clubs resident DJ, known as Saint Clare, is enjoying the fact that part of her paycheck is paid in crypto. “When I first heard about the concept, I thought wow this is really something different.”

Some critics of cryptocurrency state that its price is too volatile to be used as a payments method and that it’s increasing the likelihood of fraudulent activity. Others think it’s a great way to help finance the unbanked and take power away from the overly powerful financial giants. However you feel about cryptocurrency, Sparks and her colleagues are clear advocates and believe it could be the future payment means for adult entertainment workers.

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The post This Strip Club in Vegas Let’s You Pay for Dances in Crypto appeared first on CoinCentral.

Bad News Bears

Winter’s nearly over, folks, and this week, the bears took notice by coming out of hibernation–in the cryptocurrency market, at least.  Prices rose strongly in the first half of the week, with coins testing their all-time highs since the January-February crash, but buying power took a turn for the worse in the latter half of the week.  Just as prices looked like they might break their previous resistance levels, they bounced downward. Amidst media fanfare of regulatory worries and Mt. Gox crashing the market (again), coins across the board dropped their furthest over the week in the last 48 hours.

Bitcoin: Unable to maintain or transcend a price over $11,500 in the middle of the week, Bitcoin’s price loss has (unsurprisingly) mirrored the market’s own.  At $8720 during the time of this writing, it’s down 19% on the week.

Ethereum: Crypto’s #2 is doing even worse.  After seeing static price action and a stable chart for most of the week, it’s currently trading at $685.  That’s a 20% hit from the $865 it sported at the beginning of the week.

Ripple: With rumors of Ripple’s imminent Coinbase listing, XRP rose to $1.08 after starting its week out at $0.90. With the market turning and Coinbase silencing the chatter over adding new currencies, it’s down 11% on the week–but hey, that’s at least half better than BTC/ETH.

Honorable Mentions

Even if only by a few percentage points, S/O to those assets that are still green, namely: Bitcore Aeternity, Loopring, HShare, SingularityNET, SmartCash, and Ethos

Domestic News

Twitter Scammers Are Impersonating Famous People to Steal Your Crypto: Just like with the Nigerian Prince, if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a scam. What’s happening is people are sending crypto to addresses they believe to be owned by high profile figures like Elon Musk who promise to give them much more back. Some of you may be thinking “wow, who would ever fall for this?”. Apparently, a lot of people: so many that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin changed his username to “No I’m not giving away ETH”. 

No, I’m not giving away ETH.

— Vitalik “No I’m not giving away ETH” Buterin (@VitalikButerin) March 4, 2018

Unregulated Exchanges Can Do Anything With Money Says SEC: In a warning to investors, the SEC said: “many platforms refer to themselves as ‘exchanges’, which can give the misimpression to investors that they are regulated or meet the regulatory standards of a national securities exchange”. Even though some exchanges have their own rules in place, the SEC cannot guarantee the safety of your coins.

Co-founder of Uber is Launching His Own Cryptocurrency: Garrett Camp, co-founder of Uber and founder of the accelerator/venture fund Expa, named the cryptocurrency “Eco”. Camp hopes the coin will be used as a global currency used in the transaction of everyday payments. 50% of the initial one trillion tokens it issues will be given to the first 1 billion users who sign up.

Hackers Walked Away with $1.2 Billion in Bitcoin and Ether This Decade: This is why people are always telling you to keep your crypto off exchanges. According to global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research LLP Lex Sokolin, “it looks like crypto hacking is a $200 million annual revenue industry”. According to him, hackers have jeopardized more than 14% of the Bitcoin and Ether supply. Being that blockchain is such a new technology, the industry hasn’t had time to solve vulnerabilities and blockchain could potentially be more defenseless than previously imagined.

JP Morgan Gets in the Game with Crypto Report for Asset Managers: On its website, institutional banking goliath JP Morgan published an official report on the benefits blockchain brings to the financial and business sectors.  Targeted towards asset managers, it calls blockchain “the real deal,” implores financial bigwigs to get off the sidelines, and projects the future of blockchain adoption by touting its potential impact on legacy organizations.  

If You Can Cough Up the Cash, Coinbase Has a Crypto Index Fund Ready to Take It: Earlier this week, Coinbase–perhaps the world’s most popular place to buy and sell popular coins for cash–announced that it would be establishing its own cryptocurrency index fund.  Heralded as the Dow Jones of crypto, the Coinbase Index Fund will consist of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin, and will be open only to accredited investors.  Calling it the Dow Jones of crypto may be a bit embellishing. Sure, it’s the first index fund from one of crypto’s big boys, but the Dow Jones is open to all investors and includes an average 30 stocks at a given time, not 4.

Real Estate on the Blockchain?  It’s Real, Alright, and It’s Happening in Vermont: The first ever blockchain-driven real estate transaction took place this past Thursday in South Burlington, VT.  The transaction took place thanks to Propy Inc., a blockchain real estate company that the city partnered with back in January.  Sources close to the business deal championed that transaction and South Burlington’s initiative to oversee it, branding that city as a “global blockchain leader.”

New York Federal Judge: Cryptocurrencies are Commodities: US District Judge Jack Weinstein validated this week what the CFTC has been saying since 2015: crypto is a commodity.  The NY State judge made the landmark ruling on Tuesday, and it will allow the CFTC to continue its lawsuit against Patrick McDonnell and Coin Market Drops for fraud.

What’s New at CoinCentral?

“Blockchain is the Real Deal”: JP Morgan unveils a report on crypto’s economic advantages, serving as a physical testament to the increased interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies we’ve seen over the past year.

What is Enigma: Enigma promising privacy and scalability, it’s rare to come across such a unique project with a dedicated, vetted team striving to make conception a reality.

What is SmartCash (SMART)?: SmartCash is a project that’s all-in on open governance. It’s especially attractive for those who are interested in privacy, transparency, and decentralization at all costs.

Bluzelle CEO Pavel Bains Talks Decentralized Cloud Database: At this year’s Neo DevCon, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Pavel Bains, CEO of Bluzelle.

What is Streamr DATAcoin?: Find out how this project could provide an alternative hub for data monetization that competes with current cloud-base, centralized models.

Coinbase Poised to Launch its Own Cryptocurrency Index Fund: Now, they’ll be offering customers what amounts to the Dow Jones or the S&P 500 of crypto assets: the Coinbase Index Fund.

What is Reddcoin (RDD)?: Imagine being paid in crypto for your FB post, and being able to trade it for products, gift cards, and other items. Welcome to Reddcoin.

What is ZenCash (ZEN)?: Learn why ZenCash is a true leader not only in privacy but with governance, economic incentives, and sheer engineering ingenuity.

What is Dogezer (DGZ)?: In this beginner’s guide, find out how Dogezar created a platform to leverage network effects to the benefit of the creators and early adopters of new software.

Who is John McAfee: Bold, Bizarre, and Bullish on Bitcoin: Dangerous. Paranoid. Eccentric. Bullish on Bitcoin.These are a few words that pop up in a quick search for John McAfee – a bold series of adjectives for a computer programmer and founder of a software company.

What is Zcoin?: Zcoin utilizes the Zerocoin protocol to provide anonymous transactions in a unique scalable way. The protocol, originally intended to be an extension of Bitcoin, allows you to send coins with no transaction history.

Decred Unveils 2018 Roadmap: The Decred team is working on some pretty cool projects, and unveiled plans for decentralized exchanges, privacy features, & more.

DeepBrain Chain CEO Discusses Blockchain’s Role in the Future of AI: Why artificial intelligence on the blockchain? DeepBrain Chain’s CEO discusses the topic.

What is Byteball (GBYTE)?: Learn more about how Byteball aims to solve many of the problems that have impeded the mass adoption of blockchain technology.

What is BitBay (BAY)?: BitBay is a free, decentralized marketplace for buying and selling goods and services on the blockchain. You can connect directly with peers and transact without the need for a middleman like Amazon, eBay, or Craigslist.

Cryptocurrency News from Around the World

Japanese Regulators are Cracking Down & Suspending Some Exchanges: The Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) “will slap administrative punishment notices on several cryptocurrency exchanges” and force some to halt their business. The move comes after the FSA exposed pitfalls in the various exchanges anti-money laundering and customer protection measures during on-site checks.

Venezuelan Legislators Deem the Petro Unlawful: Venezuela’s National Assembly, a body of politicians that often opposes the policies of President Nicolas Maduro, declared Tuesday that the Petro is unconstitutional. The group accuses the Petro as being just another way for the corrupt government to embezzle money, and that it will not help the Venezuelans out their economic crises. Instead, it will worsen the economy and give false hope to a nation under Maduro, who spun the idea of the Petro “from a web of lies”.

The Chinese Gov. is Censoring Crypto Exchanges Social Media Accounts: It looks like the Chinese government will continue its brutal fight against cryptocurrency. Social media accounts like those of global exchange OKEx on China’s main social messaging app WeChat have already been blocked. When you try to go to previous links posted by the exchange, a message states that “the platform may have violated relevant laws and regulations after being reviewed per users’ complaints. The account is currently blocked and content is not available.”

Binace Users Have Accounts Phished, Bots Sell Alts for Viacoin: This Wednesday, Binance users complained that the exchange had forcefully sold their altcoins, converting them to Bitcoin only to purchase the obscure Viacoin off the site.  After doing some digging, the Binance team discovered that afflicted users had been subjects of a phishing attack wherein the hacker downloaded trading bots on their profiles, converted funds to Bitcoin, and then used that Bitcoin the purchase and pump Viacoin.  Luckily, Binance’s alert triggers caught the scam and suspended withdrawals before the hacker(s) could withdraw their inflated boon. The clever scam goes to show that hackers are ramping up their game, but it also proves that Binance, one of the world’s most popular exchanges, is worth its salt.

At Just 22-Years-Old, the German IOTA Founder Is Just Getting Started: Roughly 50 people work under the leadership of Dominik Schiener, who’s been living in Berlin since 2016. Expanding to more territories soon including Toronto, Oslo, Taiwan, and Tokyo, the project holds more than 300 million Euros in reserves to fund the project, all of which were donated by users. Networking from the German capital, IOTA already has companies like Volkswagen jumping on board with the project.

Thieves on the Hot Seat as Iceland Police Arrest 11 Suspected in Mining Hardware Heist: Home to cheap, renewable energy and a cold, mining-favorable climate, Iceland has become a popular country for cryptocurrency miners to set up shop.  A good place to start, until some ne’er-do-wells decide to filch 600 pieces of mining hardware (computers, processors, etc.) valued at roughly $2mln. The four separate burglaries took place between December and January, and the Icelandic police have apprehended 11 suspects whom they believe to be culprits in the crime.

Four Years Removed from Mt.Gox and Investors are Still Getting Dumped On (Literally): Anger, disgust, sadness, pity, dread: all sentiments the mention of Mt. Gox might stir up, especially for individuals who lived through the event that threw crypto into a 2-year-long winter in 2014.  Well low and behold, the aftermath is still causing a scene. Reports earlier this week suggest that much of the bearish price action in the market recently may be attributed to Nobuaki Kobayashi, one of the now-defunct exchange’s trustees, selling 35,000 BTC and 34,000 BCH to satisfy the Mt. Gox’s debt with creditors.  The funds were sold-off between December and February, and they accounted for roughly $400mln in total trades.

Crypto Goes Pedagogical: Cryptocurrency Added to Merriam-Webster Dictionary: The popular dictionary revealed in a blog post earlier this week that, among 850 new additions to their definitions this March, cryptocurrency, blockchain, and initial coin offering were added to the list.  Emily Brewster, an associate editor at Merriam-Webster, explained the organization’s rationale in a press release: “In order for a word to be added to the dictionary it must have widespread, sustained, and meaningful use. These new words have been added to the dictionary because they have become established members of the English language, and are terms people are likely to encounter.”

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Colin Harper coauthored this post*

The post This Week in Cryptocurrency–March 9th, 2018 appeared first on CoinCentral.

Imagine being paid in crypto for your FB post, and being able to trade it for products, gift cards, and other items. Welcome to Reddcoin. Think of Reddcoin as the “social media coin” with a peer-to-peer (p2p) payments system.

Released to the public in 2014, Reddcoin is a decentralized social cryptocurrency that allows anyone to instantly send & receive RDD (its native cryptocurrency) payments on social networks with no transaction fees. It’s essentially the blockchain version of Venmo, Facebook Cash, or Snapchats Snapcash, all of which allow you to easily transfer money to friends and family via their respective social media platforms.

However, unlike these major social media networks that require you to use their native platform to send and receive money, Reddcoin allows you to seamlessly integrate its payment features on multiple platforms like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and more. As well, you can do more than just instantly send & receive money to people with Reddcoin: you can “tip” money to content creators similar to how you would “like” or “favorite” a post.

Reddcoin uses an environmentally friendly approach called Proof-of-Stake-Velocity (PoSV). This is drastically different from Bitcoin’s proof-of-work protocol (PoW) that requires vast amounts of energy to mine. Every Reddcoin user automatically mints Reddcoins when staking, as it’s a built-in function of the downloadable official wallet (which you need to have to start using it).

Key Features of Reddcoin

1. Reddcoin is a social cryptocurrency that can be integrated with many different social media platforms for sending/receiving money with zero fees.
2. It’s a peer-to-peer open-source cryptocurrency derived from Litecoin.
3. It dedicates much of its efforts to facilitate the “tipping” of small amounts of RDD on social networks, done in a similar fashion to “liking” a post on FB.
4. The PoSV algorithm is a new take on PoS which encourages both ownership (stake) and activity (velocity).
5. Its tipping system has already been enabled on Twitter, Reddit, Twitch, and Justin.TV.

How Does Reddcoin Work?

As stated before, Reddcoin connects to your respective social media networks and enables you to send near instant, zero cost RDD payments to anyone you interact with on your network. You can send RDD to your mother for rent, repay a colleague who bought you a Chipotle burrito for lunch, or “tip” a content creator for a cute puppy post. All you need to do is click the “tip” button which then sends that person a micropayment.

Reddcoin uses PoSV, which was originally designed by the Reddcoin team to replace its former PoW protocol. PoSV is essentially a new take on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) that addresses the needs of its social currency to encourage “both ownership (stake) and activity (velocity)”.

In their own words, modifications to PoS “were needed to promote more active network participation.” The biggest difference between the two is that while PoS has linear coin aging (each day a coin is held, you acquire one day of coin age), PoSV has non-linear coin aging.

PoSV minting, the counterpart to PoW mining, allows anyone to “mint” RDD with CPUs of PCs, laptops and mobile devices instead of expensive, energy consuming mining rigs like GPU’s or ASIC’s. With PoSV, the more stake of RDD you hold in your wallet, the more likely your chances are of finding a valid block/ receiving block rewards. For this to happen, all you need to do is keep your wallet running and connected to the Internet.

About Reddcoin

Reddcoin was created on January 20, 2014, as a PoW cryptocurrency.  On February 2, 2014, after raising $100,000 through their Initial Public Coin Offering (IPCO), Reddcoin was released to the public. On April 29, 2014, they announced that Reddcoin would transition from PoW to PoSV.

In 2017, Reddcoin made an official announcement listing their team members, including developers John Nash and Leonard Simonse.

In subsequent Tweets, they’ve publicly announced the additions of developers such as Bradley Ploof and James Tweeg. They’ve been active in updating the community via Twitter, but if you’d like to keep informed directly on the teams project progress, check out their GitHub or Trello (which includes the project roadmap).

Introducing Team Reddcoin! Watch for more updates in the future as we work together to fully realize the potential of Reddcoin! $RDD pic.twitter.com/VjCmZhdcgX

— Reddcoin (@reddcoin) October 14, 2017

RDD Coin Supply and Sustainability

When the transition was made from PoW to PoSV on August 1, 2014, there were approximately 27 billion RDD. As of now, ReddCoin has a circulating supply of 28,773,308,124 RDD. Minting results in up to 5% inflation annually, and there’s no limit to the max supply of RDD.

RDD Trading History

As you can see above, Reddcoin remained relatively flat since its inception: that is until December of 2017. On January 7th, it reached ATH’s of $0.03 cents, then followed the fate of many other coins around that time and lost significant value. At the time of writing, RDD is trading for a fraction of a penny.

Where Can You Buy  Reddcoin?

You have the ability to trade RDD on exchange sites such as Cryptopia, Bittrex, and Upbit for either ETH or BTC. If you’re a new investor, you can purchase BTC or ETH coins on Bitstamp or Coinbase, then deposit it to the respective wallets on the previous exchanges.

Where Can You Store Reddcoin?

You can download a Reddcoin supported wallet from the official Reddcoin website, or you can store Reddcoin on mobile wallet Coinomi.

Conclusion

It’s hard to predict the future of Reddcoin. On one hand, it seems a bit odd that we would tip people on social media when we could just show appreciation by “liking” their content. But we do tip people for almost everything else in the United States, so why not content? The Steemit social media platform has already found success in its similar feature, which pays users in STEEM for creating and curating content, so it’s not unreasonable to see the trend spread.

That being said, Reddcoin has come a long way since its 2014 beginnings. The social cryptocurrency, which aims to integrate itself with nearly every social media platform as a peer-to-peer payments platform with tipping capabilities, is already functioning in several social media sites. It will be interesting to see the growth of Reddcoin as they make their way through 2018.

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The post What is Reddcoin (RDD)? A Beginner’s Guide appeared first on CoinCentral.

In 2016, Craig Wright claimed he created Bitcoin with the help of now-deceased ex-colleague David Kleiman. Now, Craig is being sued by Dave’s brother Ira Kleiman, who claims Wright forged his deceased brother’s signatures in order to steal Dave’s bitcoins.

According to the lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Wright “forged a series of contracts that purported to transfer Dave’s assets to Craig and/or companies controlled by him. Craig backdated these contracts and forged Dave’s signature on them.”

Moreover, the lawsuit claims that Wright was able to get away with the devious plan because no one in Dave Kleiman’s family knew the extent of his involvement in bitcoin, nor that he had accumulated hundreds of thousands of bitcoins since bitcoins inception. Taking advantage of the families lack of knowledge, Wright “perpetrated a scheme against Dave’s estate to seize Dave’s bitcoins and his rights to certain intellectual property associated with the Bitcoin technology”.

It all started when Wright reached out to Dave’s brother Ira shortly after Dave’s death in 2013. Wright told Dave’s brother that Dave signed away all the rights to his Bitcoin and intellectual property in exchange for a share of an Australian company worth “millions”, and that he would sell Dave’s share of the company in a few months.

This was clearly a lie. After deceiving the Australian Tax Office (ATO), the company went bankrupt and Wright fled the country following the subsequent raid of his home by Australian authorities. Since then, he’s been living a life of wealth and luxury in London with all the stolen bitcoin.

While the Australian computer scientist and entrepreneur was able to trick many people including reputable members of the cryptocurrency community such as Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen that he created bitcoin, others are far from convinced. In 2016, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said in a conference that Wright “is probably not Satoshi”… and it looks like his assumptions are proving to be correct.

Congruent with Buterin’s remarks, this 2016 article by TechCrunch highlights Wright’s refusal to publish any proof of his role in the creation of the original computer-based currency to the public just days after saying he would. Over the years, evidence has been stacking up against the self-proclaimed bitcoin creator.

Through various admissions, Wright made it clear that Daves estate is worth at least 300,000 bitcoins, but could be worth up to 1,100,111 bitcoins. This amount in bitcoin gives it a value of more than $11 billion USD today.

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The post Australian Man Who Claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto is Now Being Sued After Alleged Scheme to Steal Billions Worth of Bitcoin appeared first on CoinCentral.

The NEO Council recently announced its upcoming airdrop of 20 million Ontology (ONT) tokens to NEO holders. We explain how to get some of these “free” coins via the airdrop below, but first, let’s take a quick look at why blockchain enthusiasts are excited about Ontology.

What is Ontology (ONT)?

Ontology, launched by Onchain, is a public platform for building decentralized trust systems. Onchain is a blockchain company led by NEO founders Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang. The project is revolutionary in that it will allow businesses of any size, and without previous knowledge of distributed networks, to effortlessly use blockchain technology in their systems.

Last November, a crowd of blockchain enthusiasts and investors assembled in New York City to hear Onchain announce the launch of the groundbreaking platform. “Not only did we bring the best industry minds together, but the Ontology launch brought our project to the world stage” Da Hongfei said at the event. “Ontology and NEO will build a broad ecosystem using blockchain and other new technologies to serve the real economy. ”

Current trust networks face a variety of issues including poor privacy protection, untapped data value, data management monopolization, ineffective identity authentication, and more. Ontology seeks to resolve all these issues with a diverse distributed trust network to build a solid trust ecosystem.

Unlike many other blockchain projects, the Onchain team isn’t just targeting the financial industry. They’re focusing on insurance, government, medicine, IoT, and other industries during its growth, making it a wide-scale project with a lot of potential.

How to Receive ONT Through the Airdrop

KuCoin and Binance will both support the airdrop, which begins on March 1st after the snapshot of NEO addresses at block height 1974823 is taken (estimated around 5:00 am Pacific Time). To guarantee you receive your ONT airdrop tokens, please hold NEO in either of these exchanges by February 28th, 2018.

You can also receive ONT by holding NEO in any non-exchange wallet. Some of these wallets may not display ONT after the drop, but you “will nevertheless be able to retrieve ONT in a wallet that does not display ONT from a wallet which does display ONT”, for example, the Neon Wallet.

Here’s how the airdrop will function:

• For each NEO coin you own, you’ll get 0.2 ONT in two phases (50% are immediately tradable, the other 50% are locked).
• The first batch of ONT tokens will be airdropped in the weeks following March 1st (0.1 ONT per NEO).
• Using the original snapshot taken on March 1st, the other locked half (0.1 ONT per NEO) will be airdropped in Q2, 2018 following the release of the Ontology MainNet.

Click on the links below to learn more about the project and keep up to date with the Ontology project:

Official Website

Twitter

Reddit

Telegram (English)

Medium

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The post NEO Airdropping ONT Tokens to Community: Here’s How to Get Some appeared first on CoinCentral.

https://files.coinmarketcap.com/static/widget/currency.js

What is Syscoin (SYS)?

Syscoin is “a global network, a distributed ledger, a decentralized database, and a blockchain. It is also a cryptocurrency, an altcoin, a digital currency, and a tradable token.”

Originally launched in late 2014 and created through a Bitcoin fork, the current version brings us to Syscoin 2.1 and has an algorithm that allows it to be merge-mined with Bitcoin. Merge mining is simply the ability for miners to simultaneously mine two different cryptocurrencies based on the same algorithm.

The project attempts to remove the middleman and put money directly back into merchants/consumers hands, eliminating hefty fees currently charged by big corporations like Amazon and eBay. To facilitate near-zero fee transactions, you can use its native cryptocurrency, Syscoin (SYS), to pay for goods on the marketplace. However, you can also pay using alternate cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Zcash.

syscrsyscryp

The Blockmarket, built on Syscoin blockchain technology and currently fully functional, is a global commerce platform that gives you the ability to purchase or sell anything from furniture to computers for little to no fees. Additionally, businesses can create entire virtual stores on the Blockmarket and you can resell someone else’s products for a commission.

The Blockmarket Desktop Wallet was released in September 2017, and as of now, you must download it to have access to the Blockmarket marketplace. Blockmarket Web launches this quarter, and will then give you access to its decentralized commerce platform via the web.

Key Features of Syscoin

1. Decentralized Marketplace with unlimited inventory items
2. Near-zero cost transactions
3. Aliases: Send coins to case-insensitive names without needing to plug in lengthy wallet addresses (e.g. “TheFlowerShop”).
4. Ability to resell other people’s products in your store or allow your products to be resold by others for commission
5. Encrypted messaging with email-like inbox/outbox to communicate with people on the Syscoin network
6. Escrow service: holds a buyer’s tokens in escrow “until the terms of the sale are met and the buyer releases payment to the seller”.
7. Digital certificates: Issue, authorize, authenticate and exchange digital assets that contain private information like gift cards codes or registration keys.
8. No downtime: Unlike markets such as OpenBazzar in which users need to leave their computers open to keep listings up, the Blockmarket guarantees 100% uptime.
9. Integrated exchange: user-friendly exchange of 32 cryptocurrencies with in-wallet exchanges Changelly and Flypme.

Key Technical Features

According to its whitepaper, Syscoin is “a permissionless blockchain-based cryptocurrency with a set of smart contracts…built on the Bitcoin scripting system using OP1 to OP16 standard script op-codes”.

Syscoin includes:

• Hardened smart contracts (which contrast with Ethereums Turing-complete smart contracts) retain backward compatibility with the Bitcoin protocol.
• Miner incentives: “Block subsidies through rewards and transaction fees”, with an inflation metric for block rewards.
• Proof-of-work SHA-256 merge-mineable. When added, this capability grew the Syscoin network 100 fold in less than 12 hours.
• Master nodes will go live Q1 of 2018 and will facilitate 300,000 TPS and allow for 0 confirmations
• Tested and functional Lightening network on Syscoin core mainnet in next updated release, giving way for micropayments
• Pruning: splitting Syscoin service transactions “into two outputs, with the first output not subject to pruning, and the second one being pruned after expiry”
• Cryptographically secure signatures for alias owners, ensuring security on the network

Syscoin Team and Partnerships

Syscoin is led by a team of developers and was created by its current core developer, Sebastian Schepis. According to Proof of Developer, a website that verifies, evaluates, and ranks developer teams, Syscoin received 5 stars in 2014.

Blockchain Foundry maintains Syscoin as its flagship product, with a mission to “disrupt markets by leveraging the potential of blockchain technology”. In March of 2017, Blockchain Foundry partnered with the Microsoft Azure ecosystem and is one of the founding members of the Digital Identity Foundation (DIF). Other founding members of the DIF include the likes of corporate giants such as Microsoft, Accenture, ConsenSys, and more.

SYS Coin Supply and Mining

Syscoin has a max supply of 888,000,000 SYS and has a current circulating supply of 531,095,020 SYS. You can mine it, but the team recommends not mining from a CPU as the hash is too high. However, if you are interested in mining the coin, follow the instructions located on the official sites FAQ page.

SYS Trading History

Like many of the other early blockchain projects, Syscoin didn’t see substantial growth until recently. At the time of writing, Syscoin was hovering around $0.70, more than a three-fold increase in the last three months.

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With the upcoming release of the decentralized web marketplace and as Syscoin products grow their user base, the use of SYS should rise which may lead to an increase in price. As with all cryptocurrencies, though, other factors, such as FUD and the overall trend of the market could hinder this growth.

Where Can You Buy SYS?

Syscoin is available on popular exchanges like Poloniex and Bittrex. New users can purchase BTC or ETH coins on Bitstamp or Coinbase and then deposit it to their respective wallets on Poloniex or Bittrex. Once deposited, you can trade these coins for Syscoin.

Where Can You Store SYS?

You can download wallets for Mac or Windows from the Syscoin website or use your phone to download the Coinomi mobile wallet. Leaving cryptocurrencies on exchanges is not recommended due to the risk of hacks, but you have the option to leave your coins on the exchanges if they wish.

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Conclusion

Syscoin’s blockchain delivers faster speeds along with lower transaction fees than its predecessor, Bitcoin. It can support 750 tps, and with the upcoming masternode release, it will support more than 300,000 tps. For now, it’s one of the cheapest cryptocurrencies regarding transaction fees (behind zero-fee transaction cryptocurrencies NEO and NANO), even cheaper than Ripple.

As stated in their Medium Blog, “our 2018 development plans include adding decentralized databases and file storage, increasing transaction speed to POS/Visa/Mastercard capabilities, adding true Turing-complete smart contract capabilities for unlimited business logic, sidechains, application layers, and our identity layer.” While the team rarely posts on social media, they seem to always deliver what they say they will.

That being said, the Syscoin project is backed by a strong team and they’re continually improving their protocol. As well, its been in the industry since 2014, relatively long for blockchain companies and has a fully functional product. With the release of the web-based version, this may be another step towards crypto mass adoption.

The post What is Syscoin (SYS)? A Beginner’s Guide appeared first on CoinCentral.