Stellar Lumens (XLM) Forum with for newcomers and contributor's rewarded Check here



myStellar.org Portal

Blockchain Mining Benefits Beyond the Cryptocurrency Spectrum
[Image: shutterstock_759837652_1600-1140x570.jpg]
Mining is an integral part of the cryptocurrency and blockchain technology narrative. However, the process of discovering, validating, and adding new blocks (mining) to the chain has the potential to do more than increasing the money supply of a particular cryptocurrency.

Moving Past Cryptocurrency Mining

Apart from being responsible for creating new tokens in a cryptocurrency blockchain that utilizes proof-of-work (PoW), mining also serves to protect the network. It is this function that is perhaps even most relevant for any examination of the positive elements of the mining process for distributed ledger technology (DLT) framework.

Essentially, miners act as gatekeepers to help keep the blockchain running smoothly. On the blockchain, all transactions are linked to one another through blocks. As another transaction, or block, is added, the chain lengthens.

To mine on the blockchain, users who lend their computing power (called miners) are presented with a puzzle to solve. Once the puzzle is solved and confirmed, the miner is rewarded with a payout (typically, some cryptocurrency or token) and a new block is added to the chain, in addition to transaction fees.

While blockchain mining has typically been associated with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, this is just one minor example of how mining can be utilized within decentralized technology. Let’s take a closer look at blockchain mining and the benefits that it provides miners and society as a whole.

Data Democratization

When Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, and with it, the first ever successful implementation of the DLT framework, the stage seemed set for the emergence of a fully decentralized digital space. Data democratization or the return of control over user data to the users themselves is a cause that has attracted the attention of many in recent times.

[Image: shutterstock_776174995-e1544975977537.jpg]

In theory, public blockchains are decentralized, meaning that data ownership isn’t domiciled in any central server as with the mainstream internet. Every day we spend in our digital world means we are creating data. We may not think about it consciously, but the data we generate is utilized by many companies to improve their systems, as well as their profits.

Often, though, we have no idea what is being done with our data until scandals arise, and we don’t typically see the value that can be created using this data. Those in the blockchain world have fought for the democratization of data, but up to this point, there hasn’t been a platform created with this purpose in mind.

Blockchain Mining for Positive Social Impact

Mining can be used to drive positive social engineering in the digital space. Projects like Lambda have even begun examining such use cases that utilize the transaction validation process beyond the creation of new cryptocurrency tokens.

Using Lambda as a case study, it is possible for the activities of mining nodes to cause positive changes in the global business process. Recently, Ethereum World News reported that Lambda launched the first ever blockchain open-source proof-of-space-time (PoST) protocol on GitHub. Miners handle data, and as far as a blockchain is concerned, such data amounts to a massive volume.

Nearly every industry can significantly benefit from blockchain mining, especially when used as a solid foundation for the development of services and products. So far, we have seen blockchain mining in a decentralized environment lead to advancements in the health-care, education, and finance industries, to name a few.

When done correctly, mining on the blockchain can also lead to considerable profits for miners. For some, mining has even become a full-time career. Also, it’s relatively easy to begin mining. All a user requires to become a miner is a home computer and an internet connection.

Overall, mining offers a new way of earning money, participating in a real blockchain project where the user holds tokens, and a way to give back to the community in which they’re participating by verifying information, as well as helping to advance so many industries by mining data for insights.

Many view investing in the blockchain as solely a financial endeavor. However, with all of the benefits that miners bring to the cryptocurrency world, mining can provide a higher return than purely financial investments within decentralized technology. Are you ready to start taking advantage of the benefits of mining for blockchain?


source ethereumworldnews.com
by Osato Avan Nomayo

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
How Are ICO Tokens Made?
[Image: crypto-exchanges-are-charging-up-to-1-mi...sm.jpg.png]
It’s important to think about your ICO token. There is a good reason why an ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering – it involves coins. Ethereum and Stellar are two great examples of platforms that allows you to utilize the native tokens. You can likewise develop your blockchain and use that to generate a symbol. There are a few things you should think about regardless of which technique you choose to take.

Questions to ask yourself

Here are some concerns to ask yourself before setting out to develop your ICO token:

  1. What is the overall objective of your service?

  2. How will it take advantage of blockchain technology?

  3. Why do you need a token system?

  4. What worth does it give users?

  5. Is it lawfully certified?

  6. Can you list the token on a crypto exchange?

  7. Who is your competition?

  8. Why does your platform need an ICO token?
Your ICO token should be closely related to the product and services you’re providing. There are three primary kinds of ICO tokens.

[Image: ico-1-730x438.jpg]

1. Security tokens
‘Security’ is a comprehensive term that covers any possession that can be traded. This kind of token can represent tangible items like gold and residential or commercial property in the context of your ICO. Ensure to check out security guidelines if you will be providing these tokens

2. Utility tokens.
The Howey test needs tokens to satisfy three requirements to qualify as securities. Tokens that do not fulfill these criteria are generally called ‘utility tokens.’ This kind of token tends to be an integral part of a blockchain platform or application that enables users to use it or benefit from premium features.

3. Equity tokens.
Equity tokens are the most recent in ICO tokens and work mainly like shares in an IPO. Investors will get tokens that permit them to vote on decisions taken by the company running the ICO. Regulations for equity tokens are still uncertain.

[Image: 91d6f7934da9db527e7b345ae1cb47e3_o.jpg]

Initial Supply of Tokens – how many should you make?

You will require to decide the number of tokens there will be, and how they need to be distributed. Keep in mind that you have several alternatives:
  • Private sale

  • Pre-ICO sale

  • ICO sale

  • Post-ICO sale
You also desire to assign some tokens to your team and board of advisers, in addition to for overhead and reserves. How many funds you intend to raise will also help determine the Initial Supply of Tokens. A lot of ICOs have both a soft cap and a hard cap on how much they wish to raise.

How to create your ICO token

The vast bulk of ICOs uses Ethereum (ETH) as their platform to generate tokens. As a result of the Ethereum platform’s popularity, you can find a lot of guides focusing on that process. It doesn’t need to be time-consuming either! You can make an ERC-20 token in just 20 minutes. There are a few constraints on the Ethereum platform, however. Some alternatives have been created to make up for this issue.  Among those alternatives is Stellar Lumens (XLM), and there’s also guides on how to create a token on their system.



source coinrevolution.com
by Frederik Nielsen

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Edgeware: Experimental Blockchain for On-Chain Governance
[Image: What-Is-Edgeware-o0kb4vxssq6cch478gxmbxx...b928mi.jpg]
Over the past 12 months, there has been an explosion in the number of blockchain protocols being built. Of these new launches, nearly 80 percent of utility tokens and smart contract blockchains have announced that their governance processes will be decentralized and migrated on-chain.

Even though many have made announcements of on-chain governance, the actual developments on that side have been quite slow. Few projects have been able to develop true on-chain governance and hence are opting for delegated proof of stake (DPoS) and coin-voting. However, a full set of standards around active governance has yet to emerge.  

What Is Edgeware?

Edgeware is an experimental blockchain that demonstrates the competence of on-chain governance. It is an actively-governed smart contract blockchain that relies on Ethereum-based smart contracts.

Edgeware helps in integration of advanced and experimental features like proof-of-stake, sharding, on-chain identity, and cryptographic primitives for on-chain voting. As it is actively governed, Edgeware serves as a testing ground for core network upgrades and governance and thus complements existing networks.

On-Chain Governance

While major crypto projects such as Ethereum and Bitcoin use informal governance systems, they are often criticized for centralizing the process between key miners and developers. These centralization issues have led to the emergence of on-chain governance which is slowly growing as a perfect alternative to the informal processes of EIP and BIP.

Chain governance incorporates all the nodes within the blockchain into a decision-making process. Investopedia defines on-chain governance as:

Quote:“A system for managing and implementing changes to cryptocurrency blockchains. In this type of governance, rules for instituting changes are encoded into the blockchain protocol. Developers propose changes through code updates and each node votes on whether to accept or reject the proposed change.”

Once the change is proposed, each node either approves or rejects the proposed amendment. To participate in the process, key stakeholders are given economic incentives which encourage them to join.  

To demonstrate the effectiveness of this on-chain governance and core network upgrades, developers at Commonwealth Labs created Edgeware. Edgeware has capabilities to accelerate the implementation and deployment of experimental core technologies like sharding, proof-of-stake (PoS), efficient STARK implementations, and run-time changes by implementing technical advances.

As Edgeware uses the on-chain governance, it makes it easier for the blockchain team to coordinate easier than compared to upgrades which require miners to organize and upgrade their software in a coordinated manner.

Edgeware Key Features

Governance Systems

One of the critical differentiators for Edgeware has been that it is implementing a set of core governance systems. As a result, it will be launching a small set of elements to foster an initial community. These elements include:
  • On-chain identity: Edgeware will be using a first-class identity primitive which will help people identify each other in the process of governance.
  • Delegated voting: Users will be able to delegate their votes in governance processes to other coin holders. This will help in facilitating turnout and also encourage delegates to develop sound opinions on many issues.
  • Signaling: Non-binding polls are an equally important part for a blockchain project where users can create and distribute polls for signaling interest in different proposals and strategies

In the future, Edgeware expects to include support of additional governance functions such as:
  • Secure voting: This will allow users to vote anonymously thus avoiding any malicious activities including the buying of votes. It would require the team to implement the cryptographic primitives at the protocol layer.
  • DAO: This would allow users to self-organize themselves into groups and participate in a variety of decision-making process helping in a variety of community processes.
Interfaces

As far as Interface and processes are concerned, Edgeware provides contributors and coin holders to participate in the governance process by developing well-designed UIs and means for using them. Therefore, it would also enable developers and stakeholders to come together and work on the project roadmap and vote on the inclusion of specific items needed for the project.

Councils

It has been observed that, in governance, it is mostly validators that are natively incentivized. Edgeware replaces this concept as it proposes to use the block reward to incentivize all stakeholders groups. Block inflation will be allocated token towards an on-chain treasury, which will be allocated by specific councils. These groups are made up of the following sectors:
  • Governance: Edgeware will participate in governance systems including on-chain identity and tools for organizing and coordinating.
  • Core Technology: Edgeware will be one of the early implementers of scaling and sharding technologies on the Ethereum Roadmap.
  • Developer experience: It will invest in tools and services which enhance its developer’s experience. This would including implementing best in class tools for developing, debugging, testing smart contracts, etc.
  • User Experience: Edgeware will invest in wallets and user experience primitives to develop a decentralized application which will be simple and easy-to-use.
  • Ecosystem support: Edgeware will be able to engage developers, end users, and other stakeholders through in-person events.

Future of Edgeware?

Edgeware’s team sees the future in on-chain governance and has laid out a stellar roadmap for its future. Edgeware plans to develop a strong concept for on-chain identity, a useful inflation funding mechanism, a treasury, and even a political system.

Once the governance systems are in place, it expects self-organizing groups of stakeholders to come forward and actively participate in Edgeware’s governance process.  Over the long term, the network will rely entirely on Edgeware’s coin-holders and community members. For them to participate in the process, Edgeware will provide a set of tools termed “fractal governance.”  

According to Dillon Chen, Editor of Source Networks and Commonwealth Labs:  

Quote:“Edgeware is being launched with a minimal governance system. The goals are twofold: to get a working system in the hands of stakeholders, and so further work done benefits from direct, on-chain feedback.”

The first governance system will include treasury, identity, and proposals that would function as follows:
  • The treasury system will accumulate tokens each time a new block is minted.
  • In the identity system, users will be able to match their GitHub handles to Edgeware.
  • The proposal system is aimed to back discussion and voting on several types of resolutions, including network upgrades, funding proposals, and signaling proposals (resolutions with no binding effect).

Edgeware’s goal is to be a foundation which can allow developers to experiment with many governance systems simultaneously. 

The concept of decentralization via blockchain technologies is still pretty nascent, but a new actively governed chain with a progressive upgrade policy will be a crucial element in its growth.

As Edgeware is self-improving and it has capabilities of funding, developing, and deploying communal initiatives makes it a compelling alternative for both the existing and emerging blockchains.


source btcmanager.com
by Pratik Makadiya

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Can Blockchain Technology be Hacked?
[Image: Can-Blockchain-Technology-be-HackeD.jpg]
Internet Security and management of private data by whales of the tech world has put a big question mark on the legitimacy of claims made by these tech giants. The recent congressional hearing of the Google CEO Sundar Pichai didn’t help the cause. So, what is the most secure platform which can be trusted to keep users private data safe and does not distribute the rights to the people who bid the highest price?

Blockchain has always been promoted as the trustworthy and decentralized system which could be the answer to all security flaws within the current internet systems. Whenever we come across the new development where one or the other by-product of internet revolutions is caught manipulating the user data, we tend to look towards blockchain.

So, how safe and unhackable is blockchain technology? We will try to analyze every aspect of the relatively new technology critically and bust some myths over its claims of being tamper proof and unhackable.

The blockchain is not Immune to Cyber Attacks

The blockchain pundits would tell you that the technology is fool-proof and there is no way one can tamper with it. But, always remember it’s not the technology that is the problem, it’s the people around it. Any tech, old or new has several weak points, and attack vectors and Blockchain is no different. We will dive deep into the short history of cryptocurrency and see what attack vectors were most prominent or came close to busting the myth about ‘unhackable‘ blockchain technology.

Sybil Attack

Blockchain technology is considered superior because of its distributed ledger or nodes, where every node verification is dependent on the previous one. However, Sybil attack burst the bubble for those who think distributed ledger = tamper-proof technology.

In the case of a Sybil attack, a vast amount of the total nodes are owned by a single party, who can use the accumulated nodes to manipulate the network. The holders can flood the node with false transactions or disrupt the real transactions through block manipulation.

The good news is, Sybil attacks exist only in theory as of now, and its chances of becoming a real-world issue are far-fetched. However, the self-recognition of a block on the  BCH SV network after the infamous November 15 Hard Fork almost came close to the manipulation of nodes.

Generally, crypto operators use Proof-of-Work (PoW) to avoid any Sybil attacks. PoW requires mining power for earning tokens and even verifying nodes. The energy consumption for mining is quite high, so it kills the possibility of multiple node manipulation.

Routing Attack

Blockchain network might be decentralized through distributed nodes, but running a node requires internet services. Routing attack draws our attention towards a factor which nobody seems to be worried about, the role of ISPs in running a node. It is true that a node can be run anywhere in the world, but what nobody would tell you is  13 ISPs host 30% of the Bitcoin network, while 3 ISPs route 60% of all transaction traffic for the Bitcoin network.

If someone from inside decides to take control over the network through ISP, there are excellent possibilities of their success. A routing attack takes place by intercepting the signals being sent by two autonomous bodies. This is quite a common occurrence in the internet realm, and the day is not far when the same thing occurs on the crypto network.

Direct Denial of Services

Direct Denial of Services (DDoS) is one of the easiest ways of halting a network. The operations are quite simple where, many hackers or programmes send a ton of lousy network requests, which jam the system and prevent the authentic messages from reaching the server. These attacks are known to cripple any network or crash it down for some time.

Major cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin are always under the DDoS attack. However, the developer team had made enough arrangements to scale down the impact. However, in case of a successful DDoS attack, there won’t be any threat to the user’s fund or security.

The Majority Attack

The blockchain security is directly dependent on your computer’s power efficiency, and hackers can get access to computers easily. The control over the computer systems would mean dominance over the hash power. This would allow the attackers to mine blocks much faster than the rest of the network which can open the doors for double-spending, a very complicated yet significant form of attack.

However, chances of pulling off such a majority attack would be futile. Since the upper hand on the hash power can be pulled for low threshold coins. Trying to attack a network like Bitcoin would prove expensive as the person executing the attack might use the superior hash-power to mine bitcoins rather than manipulating the network

The Infamous DAO Attack

All the attacks mentioned above are either hypothetical or too complex to pull off. However, there is one instance where a hacker exploited a small error on the Ethereum network to dupe millions.

Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) was built over the Ethereum network through smart contracts. The new project allowed the users to invest in a new project and vote on its decision secured via smart-contracts. The process was simple; one needs to buy DAO tokens and then make the investment as per their will. If you want to pull out of the project, you submit the DAO token and get ethereum in return. The process was called ‘split return.’

The recovery was a two-step process where the proper amount of ethereum token was returned to the token holder and then take back the DAO tokens and register it on the blockchain, to maintain the DAO balance sheet. The anonymous hacker saw the vulnerability in the process and realized that he could trick the system into repeating the first step without finalizing the second part. This attack led to a total loss of $50 Million.

Final Thoughts

Most of the attacks mentioned above are more of vulnerabilities than a power threat. However, the cost or expenses are very high compared to the outcome. The system is robust and safe; it’s the people around it who pose as the primary threat.

People often confuse the attacks on exchanges as the attack on the network. The blockchain network is perfectly fine at the moment, but the exchanges, wallets and third-party service providers pose the real threat. The technology is sound, people need to be more educated of vulnerabilities and be vigilant. A phishing scam taking all your bitcoin is not a threat to the bitcoin network, but you.

source btcwires.com
by Prashant Jha

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
How Social Wallets Will Change The Cryptocurrency Industry
[Image: bitcoin-social-wallet-874x404.png]
In the past year, the mainstream world has embraced the idea of the blockchain and crypto-based transactions, even making 2018 the so-called year of the blockchain. The topic has moved past mere buzzwords and opened up into new ideas and new innovations. One of the biggest steps forward in this mainstream acceptance is the fact that people understand how crypto can mean more than just trading cryptocurrency.

Much of this is due to the great work accomplished on Ethereum in 2018. From there, the blockchain industry has witnessed an explosion of new assets, and in doing so, the nature and function of crypto assets have evolved. Today, they break down into four distinct categories:

Traditional cryptocurrency: The traditional cryptocurrency options offer a decentralized currency with thousands of people mining and securing the network — all without crowd sales, ICO, or airdrop. Bitcoin is the de facto example of this.

Tokens or colored coins: Tokens/colored coins are typically associated with some form of distribution outside of mining. Many are issued on another blockchain such as Ethereum or Waves. They can be broken down even further into several subgroups, with the common thread being that they are tied to an outside market and their source of value is fungible. How this is achieved, though, can differ; in some cases, it can use a physical commodity like oil (Petro is a great example) or it can have an intangible valuation (PAX has joined the ranks of the USD Tether tokens).

One-time use token: Also known as coupons, this oft-forgotten crypto comes in a variety of flavors and can even be on their own blockchain. The benefit of these stems from their ability to record data, then disappears from the market. This is particularly effective in any market where one-way exchanges are key, such as when the Custom and Border Patrol team record data for an Internet of Things devices. Factoids are a hybrid example of a crypto and a token. They allow a user to write data to the Factom blockchain and then they are gone from the market.

Nonfungible digital assets: Not all digital assets are interchangeable, and there is plenty of real-world need for this type of transaction. Nonfungible digital assets represent unique items, and they can have a real-world connection (e.g. real estate, where every house or unit of property is unique) or a digital collectible. Examples of the latter include CryptoPunks, which is purely for collectors, or collecting-based games such CryptoKitties.

Where Can People Store Their Tokens?

If the blockchain industry is going to create ways of representing both online and offline forms of value through cryptocurrency and tokens, then the next question is this: where can people store all of their digital possessions? A secure location is required to put all this value. The answer is crypto-based wallets, which have come a long way in just a few years of development.

Wallets have evolved to hold many different types of tokens. Storage is essential, but the latest innovations have also given the ability to access decentralized exchanges. This creates an all-in-one tool, streamlining the overall process so that the wallet can act as a hub for all things crypto. A good example of this is the Waves client, which goes beyond mere storage; the Waves client also lets you create new tokens and make trades from within your wallet. Another pair of examples is Vault and Lumi. These were created specifically for storing your digital collectibles — most of which are ERC 721 assets (the standard used for many collectibles created on Ethereum).

The common thread through all of these new blockchain assets is the practical need for a wallet mechanism. Especially for the space of unique tokens or digital collectibles, without having a virtual holding location, the process becomes more cumbersome and difficult to track. Such hurdles wind up slowing down the overall adoption of a platform, which leads to another point: the speed of mainstream acceptance goes beyond the platform itself. The development of supporting applications and accessories are just as important, as they simplify and scale the user experience. It’s the difference between having a computer that technically runs even though it’s operated by a command-line system versus a user-friendly MacBook.

The wallet innovations have just started to scratch the surface of what’s possible. In the coming months, several wallets will offer new security features to extend protections, creating a deeper layer of security around your passwords. What does that mean for the layperson? Now the crypto wallet can sign into websites, MetaMask already does this for some websites. Not only does this streamline things for users, but it also creates a new form of digital identity. By signing into your wallet, you are thus validating yourself.

This brings a new idea to the horizon: a unified and secure identity. Cryptocurrency can power the process of transactions, but the engine under the hood is the blockchain. With the blockchain, a permanent, secure, and transparent database backed by one-way encryption brings a scalable type of protection to the most precious of data.

While the idea of a digital wallet may seem like practical storage for crypto tokens, it only takes one step back to see the bigger picture: a truly secure digital identity on and offline.

source coincentral.com
by TIANALAURENCE

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Top 5 Stellar (XLM) Wallets: How to Best Store Your Lumens?

[Image: Top-5-Wallets-for-Stellar-XLM-696x449.jpg]
Stellar Lumens (XLM) is considered to be one of the fastest cryptocurrencies around, which is only one of the reasons why many expect this coin to stick around for years to come. This is an important thing for a cryptocurrency, especially now, when each coin's value seems to be dropping.

Those who have decided to take their chances and invest in Stellar also need a good place to keep it until the time comes when prices will be in a friendlier place. This is why crypto wallets were made in the first place — so that users would have a safe place for their coins.

Of course, there is always an issue of choosing the right wallet to store your Stellar coins into, which is why we have created a list of

5 Best Wallets for Storing XLM.

1. Ledger Nano S

Most crypto enthusiasts have likely at least heard of Ledger Nano S, as it is a very popular hardware wallet. It is easy to use, it can store a wide variety of digital assets. As a hardware wallet, it doesn't have a constant connection to the internet, which eliminates the possibility of the wallet being hacked. There is only a small window of opportunity for would-be attackers to access it, which is when users are transferring funds to and from the wallet.
The wallet itself looks and functions like a USB device, and it is currently the best wallet of this type on the market. It uses a secure chip, not unlike those found on credit cards. The only downside of the wallet is the fact that it needs to be purchased. However, it is not that expensive, and anyone can obtain it for only $100.

2. Foxlet

Next, we have Foxlet, which is an open-source desktop wallet. It allows users to encrypt their private keys and store them by themselves on a piece of paper or within a computer file. As all non-hardware wallets, there is a slight risk of a hacking attack. However, for those who are confident that their device will not get hacked, this wallet may be a perfect solution.
The wallet also allows users to trade within it, which means that at least some trading can be done without the need to go to an official exchange. Most users agree that it is more than a decent temporary storage solution, but perhaps it is not as safe as other options for long-term HODLing.

3. LOBSTR

The ease of use and user-friendliness is among the most important things for newcomers to the crypto world when they attempt to handle their coins. This is why LOBSTR is among the best wallets for new investors, as it is the easiest way to get started with Stellar.
Its user interface is simplistic, but still quite beautiful, while all instructions are clear and precise. All personal data is getting encrypted, as usual with any good wallet, and its owner is the only entity with control over the coins.
Also, all that you need in order to use it is to register with an email and password. This means that the user is subjected to a light form of KYC, which means that those looking for absolute anonymity and privacy might want to try another option. However, the wallet is still an excellent option for an average everyday crypto traderor investor.

4. Interstellar

Then, there is Interstellar, as a secure, safe, and completely decentralized wallet for Stellar. It offers countless features, and it also has its own exchange, which puts it among the best trading clients in the market. It can be used on Linux, Windows, Mac, and Android.
It supports hardware wallets, and it even allows users to manage several accounts and multiple assets. Trading and swapping tokens via its platform is easy and safe. The wallet is unique in every way, and it is worth checking out if you are thinking of trading stellar.

5. BlockEQ

Finally, we have BlockEQ — a safe and secure wallet and a decentralized exchange for Stellar. This was also the first iOS wallet that supported trading on Stellar's DEX. It is extremely fast, and it provides cheap micropayments, which only come at a fee of $0.00001.
The wallet is quite good at handling privacy, and it is the user that is in charge of handling their own private key. In other words, the wallet cannot access your funds, nor can anyone else, provided that the private key remains safe in your possession.
All data is encrypted and stored on a user's device. The wallet's desktop version allows users to create an advanced passphrase that can add yet another level of protection on top of a standard layer, that features a 24-word phrase.v


source bitcoinexchangeguide.com

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Stellar Lumens [XLM] falls by 8.32%; Tether [USDT] take over fourth position
[Image: joe-neric-223562-unsplash.jpg]
Stellar [XLM] which ranked fourth on the CoinMarketCap until December 14, has slipped to the fifth position. This slip provided the stable coin, Tether [USDT] to take over the fourth position.

[Image: stellar-1d-1.png]
Source: CoinMarketCap

At the time of press, Stellar was valued at $0.0953 with a market cap $1.8 billion. The coin registered a 24-hour trade volume of $83 million and it slipped by 8.32% within 24 hours, at the time of press. The coin noted an overall fall of 19.29%.

According to the maximum trading volume of the coin, Bibox reported the highest volume of $23.5 million with LTC/BTC pair. Bibox followed itself and registered second highest trading volume of $22.7 million with LTC/ETH pair. Bibox was followed by $21.9 million with LTC/USDT.

Tether, the stable coin was trading at $1 with a market cap of $1.85 billion and had plunged by 0.19% and is seen to maintain its standing.

[Image: Stellar-trading-view.png]
Source: Trading view

When the coin started to fall, it broke previous support and a new support was seen to form at $0.0963. The coin was valued at $0.9057 at the beginning of the year, which was the highest it was ever valued at. However, the coin has been gradually falling and it doesn’t seem to stop.

Recently, Tron [TRX] had surpassed Stellar in terms of trading volume. It was informed by Tron, Chief Executive Officer and founder of the Tron Foundation, Justin Sun in a twitter post. Sun tweeted:

Quote:“According to @CoinMarketCap, there are 159 trading pairs of #TRON which already surpassed 157 trading pairs of Stellar. #TRX was already listed on more than 100 exchanges, including Crypto/Crypto & Crypto/ Fiat trading pairs. $TRX”

However, a glimpse of happiness was seen for the coin on December 13, when CoinField, a prominent Canadian cryptocurrency exchange announced that they were launching Stellar on the platform as an XRP base pair. The XLM/XRP pair will be available alongside six different fiat pairings like USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, JPY, and AED.



source ambcrypto.com
by Namrata Shukla

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Do We Really Want To Tokenize Everything? And Can We?
[Image: do-we-really-want-to-tokenize-everything-and-can-we.jpg]
Over the last year, there has been considerable discussion over the tokenization of physical assets. That is, having something tangible, like a bar of gold, represented by a token on a blockchain, like Ethereum or Bytom, so that there is an immutable record of ownership of the asset. This asset can then be traded or sold without the need for a middleman to keep a record of the transaction – and take a commission for his troubles – thus making the transaction safer, faster, and less expensive.

It’s not only gold that’s being tokenized. Other precious metals are also up for trade via blockchain technology. Stocks, bonds, and shares are all said to be next, and security token offerings are one incarnation of this move. In fact, STOs are hotly tipped to be the next big thing.

It seems anything worth anything is ripe for tokenization.
 
So, Everything Is Tokenizable?

Any blockchain that is capable of executing a smart contract (like Ethereum and Bytom that I mentioned earlier) offers the ability to have part-ownership of an asset. Recently, Andy Warhol’s famous painting, ’14 Small Electric Chairs,’ was tokenized and sold at auction. Over 800 bidders bought a 31.5% stake in the painting, which had a reserve price of US$4,000,000.
 
But who gets to hang it in their dining room and for how long?

I don’t think anyone is actually going to get the opportunity to have this piece hanging up on a wall in their home anytime soon, but what if this was not a painting but a luxury yacht. Not many of us can just go out and buy a luxury yacht, but what if twenty people wanted to and decided to buy one together?

It is possible to execute this type of transaction via smart contract on a blockchain. Twenty YCHT tokens could be issued, and each owner would receive one. They would have an immutable record of ownership that they could trade or sell to another party at any time. But the token would also show how much time that person would be able to have on the yacht. In fact, in an IoT kind of way, access to the boat could be restricted simply by not having the right blockchain-based digital ID credentials with you when you go to start the yacht’s engine. There’s plenty more that can be achieved with a smart contract, but you get the idea.

The same functionality can be used for cars, vacation homes, rental agreements, the list goes on, and there are plenty of companies out there trying to make these things happen right now, but I won’t go into those here.
 
Do We Want This?

Since most blockchains are decentralized and, therefore, have no central governing bodies to mess with the record as it suits them to, smart contracts that allow people to share ownership of an asset between them is an ideal solution. However, disputes could prove an issue.

Let’s say Owner 5’s three-year-old spilled apple juice all over the back seat of the shared car. Owner 7, the next car user, spots the damage and requests Owner 5 pay for cleaning. Owner 5 says that the spill had occurred before they got the car. What then?
One idea would be to have CCTV in the car so that the other owners can check back through the footage to see what really happened and to decide who should pay for what. But this is veering towards an Orwellian 1984-style totalitarian, panoptic mess that society should be aiming to avoid.

Smart contracts run on Ethereum, Bytom, Stellar, or any other capable blockchain certainly stand to make our lives simpler. However, smart contracts are still in their early days, and much work needs to be done with them before they can be deployed in fully mainstream applications.


source coinnounce.com

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Circle CEO: Cryptographic Tokens Will Represent Every Form of Financial Asset
[Image: circle_screenshot_-_dec_2018.png__740x38...ling-2.png]
Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of FinTech startup Circle, in an interview on Friday (14 December 2018) on CNBC's morning show "Squawk Box", made some very interesting comments about the future of the cryptocurrency sector. Please note that this inteview took place at a time when Bitcoin (BTC) was trading around $3,264 on crypto exchange Bitstamp.

Cryptocurrency Valuations

"The fundamental valuation metrics in this space are really focused on the actual usage of these platforms. Now, obviously, there are hundreds of different cryptoassets. There's flagship crypto networks like the Bitcoin network, the Ethereum network, and if you look at the R-squared correlations between core usage and value, they are actually highly highly correlated, and what we are seeing, actually, both for Bitcoin and for Ethereum, in particular, there is some decoupling there, which is to suggest that both of those assets have been oversold. And so, in the case of Bitcoin, maybe moderately oversold. In the case of Ethereum, potentialy, pretty significantly oversold."

The Cost of Mining Bitcoin vs. Spot Price of Bitcoin

"The way mining works is that there's a difficulty rate. That adjusts every 10 or 14 days, and effectively if it's too expensive for a miner, then they'll drop out. And so, that's when you see hash rates go down. That means, basically, that miner aren't able to do it profitably, but effectively there will always be a sort of marginal cost equals marginal value kind of equation behind the mining side of it. It does mean, though, that there are going to be less companies who are less vertically integrated who can compete in that side of the market."

When Will We Have Regulatory Claity in the Crypto Space?

"Just to be clear, the U.S. actually has more regulatory clarity than almost any other market in the world. The exchange of digital currency with the banking system has been regulated for over five years. Companies like Circle and Coinbase are regulated under Bank Secrecy Act and money transmission laws. That's very significant from a consumer protection and dealing with financial crimes perspective. There are a couple of things [missing]. One is [that] we've got essentially a collection of commodity markets, and then we have a collection of potentially kind of digital securities markets, and there has to be a lot clearer definition between what cryptoassets are, say, currencies or commodities and which cryptoassets are actual securities. That's sort of clarity and guidance. And the second is once you have that guidance, what are the kind of market rules that should be applied, whether it's for secondary trading of these digital securities or do we need national commodity spot market supervision for the crypto space? We are advocating... We've been very active with Congress, with policymakers, with agencies, and everyone involved in this. There's a lot of engagement."

What's Bitcoin Worth in Three Years?

"You know, I don't make significant price predictions, but I think it's certainly going to be worth a great deal more than it is today. I am long in the market. I think the key thing with Bitcoin is that it is unique in its security and its scale and as a non-sovereign store of value that individuals can hold and hold in a protected fashion. That's attractive all around the world."

Is There a 'Winner Take All' Situation With Cryptoassets?

"I do not think it's a 'winner take all'. We have a phrase: 'The Tokenization of Everything', and we think cryptographic tokens are going to represent every form of financial asset in the world. There'll be millions of them in years."



source cryptoglobe.com
by Siamak Masnavi

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Why the Marshall Islands Is Trying to Launch a Cryptocurrency
[Image: 1000x-1.jpg]
The country, facing rising seas and financial isolation, desperately needed a get-rich-quick scheme. Naturally, it decided to create a legal tender cryptocurrency.


David Paul looked nervous. He rested his hand over his mouth, fidgeted with his wedding ring, sometimes smiled and sometimes grimaced as the legislature for the Republic of the Marshall Islands debated a motion to oust his boss, President Hilda Heine, from power.

Paul, a top government minister, wore a purple tie and a ribbon on his pocket—the color signaling support for Heine. The tie and dark suit also marked the importance of the occasion in a country where shorts and Hawaiian shirts are standard business attire. One of Heine’s opponents the previous week called for a vote of no confidence. Among the complaints: The president had supported a plan to create the first legal tender cryptocurrency in the world—a digital token called the SOV, for “sovereign.”

If the vote of no confidence passed, most Marshallese expected the opposing senators to repeal the cryptocurrency law. “I knew it was close,” Paul says. “I knew going in it was close.” With one member absent in the 33-member Nitijela, Heine got exactly half the vote, with a tie going to the incumbent. She had eked out a victory. Paul says he never really doubted the outcome.

On the Distant Edge of Dollars

[Image: -1x-1.png]
Data: Natural Earth

He might have had reason to worry. The Marshall Islands crypto project, which was largely Paul’s baby, seemed like a good idea until the international finance community responded by threatening to cut off the tiny Pacific island nation from the global banking system. When the Nitijela passed the law authorizing the SOV in February, a Bitcoinwas trading for more than $10,000, and someone had just spent 10 times as much for a virtual pet kitten based on crypto technology. But by the time of the no-confidence vote, in mid-November, Bitcoin was worth $6,000, and all kinds of crypto assets were hurting.

The Marshalls’ experience in the boom and bust throws into relief problems the country faced long before it tried to go crypto: increased isolation from the financial world as bank after bank fled the islands and a desperate need for cash. But some Marshallese worry the SOV brings new problems with an uncertain payoff. “There should have been more due diligence,” says Senator Bruce Bilimon, who abstained from the vote to create the currency but was in favor of the vote of no confidence. For the company that helped pull the Marshall Islands into the plan, he says, “it’s good it’s taking risks. But is it worth taking risks for a country?”

Paul had just joined President Heine’s cabinet when he was asked in January to speak with two entrepreneurs who’d traveled more than 8,000 miles from Tel Aviv to meet with members of the government. He was a first-term senator from Kwajalein Atoll, where the U.S. has a missile defense facility, and Heine had appointed him “minister-in-assistance,” a broadly defined position that effectively made Paul her right-hand man. She asked him to hear the entrepreneurs’ pitch.

Paul says he’d never owned Bitcoin but followed it for years, and he seized on the project immediately. At the meeting he met Barak Ben-Ezer, then 39. Ben-Ezer was the founder of Neema, a company that uses digital currencies to provide financial services to unbanked populations in developing countries. He wanted the Marshall Islands to let Neema embark on an even more ambitious project.

[Image: 1400x-1.jpg]
Heine PHOTOGRAPHER: BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Paul and the other Marshallese had never heard of Neema, but they said they ran a background check later. Ben-Ezer had studied computer science and economics at Columbia University. Neema had received seed funding from Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley incubator whose success stories included Airbnb Inc. and Dropbox Inc.

Paul thought the project could burnish the country’s reputation. “You always remember who was the first to step on the moon—that was Neil Armstrong,” he says. Likewise, the SOV could be remembered as the first national digital currency ever launched. But beyond Paul’s dream of making an international mark, Ben-Ezer’s idea had some specific practical appeal.

Formed by volcanoes that later sank back into the ocean, the Marshall Islands are thin slivers of land wrapped around shallow lagoons. The country, which became independent from the U.S. in 1986, has a population of about 53,000 spread over 24 inhabited atolls with a combined 70 square miles of land. That’s about the same as Washington, D.C.—if you cut that city’s population by 90 percent, broke it into pieces, and spread it over a swath of ocean larger than Alaska.

“If it doesn’t work, I’m like, ‘Well, what do we have to lose?’ ”

Majuro, the most populous atoll and the seat of government, has no addresses and one main street running its length. In some places, you can look straight down the road and see both the Pacific and the inner lagoon out of the corners of your eyes. Flooding is constant. Sometimes powerful tides or swells cause the lagoon to sweep across parts of the island and into the sea. The government sends out mass text messages to warn “inundation is very likely” when the weather service projects tides will be at their worst. A one-foot rise in sea levels, which some scientists predict could happen as soon as 2050, could put portions of the island permanently underwater. To deal with rising sea levels, the government hopes to raise the land on the islands higher, but that could cost billions of dollars. The Marshalls have an important strategic position for the U.S., and aid accounts for around half of the government’s revenue. But under current agreements, U.S. financial support ends in 2023.

At the time Ben-Ezer pitched the SOV, Neema said it could have the “initial monetary offering” ready to go in three months. Long term, he said, he thought that one day the SOV could become an international currency, and the Marshall Islands could become a link between the crypto world and the traditional financial world in the same way that Hong Kong and its dollar became important despite its size.

For the initial currency offering, the Marshalls would rely on speculators believing in that future, or at least believing that someone else would believe it long enough for the SOV’s value to rise. As the Marshallese considered the project, they read that the messaging startup Telegram had raised almost $1 billion from private investors by selling its own cryptocurrency. So the idea of being able to sell a new currency attached to an actual country didn’t seem like such a long shot.

The country would issue 24 million SOVs, of which the Marshall Islands would get half. Neema projected that the SOV could trade for $50 each. The country planned to sell half of its coins right away, which if the projection was correct, would raise $300 million.

Of the nation’s share, 2.4 million SOVs would go straight to Marshallese citizens in payments over five years. Neema agreed to bear all the development costs itself, with the government putting up nothing but its reputation. The SOV would have one thing that Bitcoin and other virtual coins could never match: the backing of a government. (As the Nitijela debated the SOV law, Venezuela unveiled its own cryptocurrency, called the “petro.”)

If the cryptocurrency plan seemed like a get-rich-quick scheme, that was, to some extent, what the Marshall Islands needed. The problems “are right in front of us, and there is no real and tangible solution that we can see,” Heine says. She’s been traveling the world trying to persuade donors and development partners to contribute money, with mixed success. The regular currency of the Marshall Islands is the U.S. dollar, and it would continue to be used alongside the SOV no matter what happened with the launch, she says. “If it doesn’t work, I’m like, ‘Well, what do we have to lose?’ ”

Beyond the money, Paul and Ben-Ezer thought the currency could solve another imminent problem. The U.S. crackdown on money laundering has made it less profitable and more risky for international banks to work with tiny nations such as the Marshalls. The only bank with branches throughout the islands relies on First Hawaiian Bank, and its connections to BNP Paribas SA, to provide basic services such as international money transfers or cashing locals’ paychecks from the military base. First Hawaiian has said it plans to shut down that link but has agreed to a delay while the country looks for replacements. So far, it hasn’t found any.

With the new currency, Paul thought, the Marshallese wouldn’t be held hostage to banks to get money off and on the island. The government could go from begging for banks to come and stay to asking why it needed them at all.

Ben-Ezer recalls that after the bill passed, on March 1, he attended the country’s ceremonies for its remembrance day for nuclear testing victims. Beginning in 1946, the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll and other islands. Residents have suffered from the effects of the fallout ever since. The speaker of the Nitijela, who supported the Marshalls’ crypto project, gave a moving speech, and at its conclusion told the crowd that the legislature had just passed a bill that would bring in millions of dollars to help those hurt by the tests. The law established the SOV as the national currency and outlined what would be done with the proceeds once it was launched. But it gave only a rough sketch of how the government would get that done. The speaker signed the bill into law right there on the podium.

It took a few days for the international banking community and the U.S. government to become fully aware of what had just happened. The law created a Legal Tender Committee, whose job included documenting the project’s potential risks. Chief Secretary Ben Graham, who’s coordinating the committee, says that after the law passed people started bombarding the government with questions and potential snags. What if the price of the SOV is so volatile that it makes it impossible to use in the real world? What if the local telecom system can’t handle it? What if it’s used for money laundering or terrorism financing?

The legislature in February gave the U.S. Embassy a heads-up that it was considering a cryptocurrency law, but passed the bill before getting a response. On April 11 the Marshall Islands got its first official notification, in a letter from the U.S. ambassador, that the U.S. wasn’t happy.

[Image: 1400x-1.jpg]
Marshall Islands lawmakers hear a discussion about digital currency in February.
PHOTOGRAPHER: HILARY HOSIA/AP PHOTO

The letter said the U.S. was disappointed it wasn’t consulted before passage of the bill. It thought the cryptocurrency raised money laundering and terrorism financing concerns, could make the country’s economy unstable, and could even spook the last outside bank connected to the island into cutting ties sooner.

A couple weeks after the embassy letter, Paul and Finance Minister Brenson Wase traveled to Washington for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The U.S. Department of the Treasury asked them to stop by, and Wase says the walk down the Treasury’s long hallways to the meeting room was tense. Paul, Wase, and three other Marshallese on the trip sat across from 15 representatives from the U.S. government. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea kicked off the meeting. “He said, ‘I don’t like it. I will never support it,’ ” Wase recalls.

Paul says the group sparred for hours. The Marshallese said Treasury was jumping to a conclusion without even seeing the anti-money-laundering and “know your customer” protocols that Neema was developing. The design would require every holder of the SOV to register his identity, which they said would make the SOV unusable for money laundering and terrorism financing. At the end of the meeting, the Treasury officials agreed to meet again when development was further along, which Paul took as a sign there was an opening to get their approval. In an email to Bloomberg Businessweek, a Treasury spokesman wrote that the department has serious concerns with the project and that the Marshall Islands will decide for itself whether to proceed given the risks.

Marshall Islands officials had a similar meeting with First Hawaiian Bank, which said launching the SOV could lead the company to pull out of the country. A regularly scheduled visit from the IMF didn’t go much better. It issued a report recommending that the country abandon the project.

“The risk is much bigger than the benefit they expect,” says Joong Shik Kang, who led the IMF review. If the currency were implemented poorly, it might be the currency of choice for terrorists trying to move money outside the view of the U.S. government or for money launderers trying to evade taxes. For Kang, the project is a risk even if it works. If the SOV does trade at $50 apiece, does pushing $120 million into the economy—the equivalent of 60 percent of the country’s annual output—cause inflation on the islands? What happens to the economy if the SOV price crashes?

For Wase, Paul, and other officials desperate for a way to raise money, the arguments seemed hypocritical. The Marshall Islands needed hundreds of millions of dollars now. What brilliant ideas did their critics have for raising that money? “We told them, ‘OK, we will try, but you should do your part in trying to resolve this problem,’ ” Wase says of the country’s banking issues and need for funds. Otherwise, he said, it had no choice but to take a chance on projects like the SOV. Wase says that at October’s IMF meeting in Bali, other Pacific Island countries with scant funds and their own international banking problems told the IMF they wanted to follow the Marshall Islands’ lead.

International regulators, banks, and the U.S. Treasury Department didn’t succeed in getting the Marshall Islands to give up the project, but they did slow it down. Marshallese officials promised that once the critics saw the SOV’s anti-money-laundering controls, their fears about that would subside. Still, most government officials don’t think proceeding with the launch of the sovereign is worth it until the concerns are allayed.

Foreign Minister John Silk says losing the banking links would be devastating. The U.S. Army base on Kwajalein Atoll employs hundreds of locals. If the Bank of the Marshall Islands lost its relationship with First Hawaiian, the Marshallese workers wouldn’t be able to cash their paychecks, he says. “At the end of the day, when it comes to the choice between whether you want to continue the correspondent banking relationship or have a SOV, personally, I’d want the banking relationship,” Silk says.

The Sunday after the vote, Kalani Kaneko, who co-sponsored the legislation establishing the SOV, is on a boat in Majuro’s lagoon right off the island of Eneko, which is a short trip from downtown but feels remote. Since independence, Marshallese still serve in the U.S. military, and Kaneko spent 20 years with the Army before running for office in the Marshalls. His family swims in the azure water of the lagoon, which is dotted with ships that transport tuna to canneries across Asia.

As the boat powers around the lagoon, Kaneko gestures toward newly built seawalls. During severe tides, he says, the water comes right up to the rim. Homeowners beset with flooding lobby to get their own protection, but the government has enough funding only to build small lengths at a time, and even those aren’t high enough to deal with some storm swells. Kaneko points out lower areas of land likely to go underwater first as sea levels rise.

Neema and the Marshall Islands still have a long way to go with the SOV project. Few Marshallese are aware that they may soon be using a second currency. A waitress at a local coffee shop says she didn’t even know about the SOV until hearing it debated during that week’s vote. Cryptocurrencies rely on a web-connected economy, but a group of University of the South Pacific college students sharing a pizza laugh when asked if the internet is reliable. Power outages are frequent, and the students say the ATMs run out of cash all the time. Their parents use only the basic functions of cell phones, and on more remote atolls, Neema has determined it might issue a form of “crypto cash” that can be used in places with intermittent internet access. Ben-Ezer says the technology for the SOV will be ready by midyear.

Then it will be up to the Marshall Islands to pull the trigger. With more problems than money, it’s running low on options. “That’s why we need this to fly,” Kaneko says.


source bloomberg.com
by Joe Light

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Binance Adds USDC Trading Pairs – Stellar and Ripple Represented
[Image: binance-cryptocurrency-exchange-app-760x400.jpg]
Binance announced Friday that it would be adding a few new USD Coin pairs and moving its two existing USDC pairs into the combined stablecoin market called USDⓈ. Both ripple (XRP) and stellar (XLM) will have USD Coin pairs, in addition to their existing stablecoin pairs. The move involves the cancelling of any trades that exist in the current two USDC markets: BTC/USDC and USDC/BNB at the time of the move, essentially wiping the slate and creating fresh markets for the stablecoin.

The pairs being created with USDC are: BNB, BTC, ETH, XRP, EOS, XLM, and USDT. All of these will now be accessed through the USDⓈ asset market tab. They will no longer be in the regular coin exchange of Binance. It has BTC and ether as its primary base trading tokens.

Binance was clear on their warning about existing trades in tangential markets:

Quote:“Please note: The existing USDC/BNB and USDC/BTC trading pairs will be removed and delisted at 2018/12/16 03:00 AM (UTC). All existing orders in each order book will also be canceled at this time.”

The new markets were already showing in the advanced exchange as of Friday but were not operational.

Stellar (XLM) and Ripple (XRP) Both Get New Liquidity


[Image: Stellar.jpg]

Stellar (XLM) should receive a liquidity bump from the introduction of USD Coin trading pairs on Binance.

XRP and XLM, ripple and stellar, the feuding cousins of the regulated international money movement game, were both already listed against PAX, USDT, and TrueUSD. Now they will have an additional fiat trading pair in USDC. That they are being treated equally is an interesting move on the part of Binance, whereas their overall market indicators are far from equal.

XRP was trading at 29 cents at the time of writing with a 24-hour volume of over $300 million. Stellar lumens were at around 10 cents. Their 24-hour volume was approximately one-fifth of ripple’s, at just over $67 million.

The long history between the two tokens makes for an interesting dive for anyone interested in cryptocurrency. They’ve been embroiled in lawsuits and the like, but their communities have a lot of crossover. They started with essentially the same technology, but the Stellar project philosophically prefers to see itself as a peer-to-peer payment protocol. Blockchain startup Ripple, with whom XRP is closely associated, prefers to focus on bank-to-bank and institutional money movements across borders, easing frictions created in the old world financial system. Such frictions were created using clearinghouses and intermediary banks. They go away when cryptocurrency and blockchains enter the picture.

Both are, of course, a long way from their all-time highs. However, their current prices are much more realistic than many altcoins in that they draw from multiple fiat markets, including the now four they will each have on Binance, the world’s most active exchange.


source ccn.com
by P.H. Madore

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
What Is The 51% Attack And Why It’s A Dangerous Threat For Cryptocurrencies?
[Image: attack51.jpg]
Area 51: What Is The 51% Attack And Why It’s A Dangerous Threat For Cryptocurrencies?

The 51% attack is considered one of the most dangerous cyber attacks against cryptocurrencies. This attack happens when 51% of the network’s hashrate concentrates under one entity, which can either be a mining pool or an authoritative figure in the crypto space.

In this article, we will discuss where a 51% attack is possible, the consequences of the attack, and some cases where the attackers succeeded in occupying a whole blockchain.

51% Attack Methods

There are three scenarios where the 51% attack becomes possible:

The first one – the most common case – happens when a mining pool becomes too large. As the hashrate of the pool surges due to an increasing number of miners joining, there’s a chance that the mining pool will exceed 51% of the total network’s hash power. In 2014, this happened with Bitcoin. In July of that year, the mining pool GHash.io passed the 51% hashrate of the network. However, the pool owners decided not to take advantage of this and cut themselves down, promising that they would never pass again the 39.99% hashrate.

Others were not as lucky as Bitcoin because two ERC-20 Ethereum-based blockchains, Krypton and Shift, have suffered 51% attacks by malicious miners. The attackers used mining pools to conduct their “operations” on the two networks.

The second method has only been achieved in theory. This involves a very powerful and rich entity with plenty of capital – which could be a government or a Bitcoin whale – purchasing tons of mining rigs to take over 51% of a blockchain. A variation on this is the “gold finger” attack, in which the entity takes over the majority of a coin’s network and proceeds to destroy the value of the cryptocurrency by double spending or by spamming the chain with transactions.

The third method is a diabolical scenario, which involves smart contracts. The contract would require miners to deposit a large amount of funds. According to this hypothetical scenario, you can only leave the contract when 60% of the miners have joined. If you want to leave after this, you can only do so when 20 blocks have been added to the hardfork chain you are mining the blocks for. The new chain will grow bigger and longer, and the old one will become irrelevant as 60% or more of the miners are bound to the hardfork blockchain via the smart contract.

As there are no risks and there is the possibility for miners to earn rewards at the end, they are most likely join the contract. 

However, once they join they will be incentivized to stay due to the reward (again) and the large amount of funds they deposited when they joined.

Possible consequences

The 51% attack has four types of repercussions, which sometimes can be highly dangerous for the victim chain’s network:

One is selfish mining, where the attackers take advantage of their majority in regards to collecting the rewards. If a block is mined at the same time, miners have to vote whose block they will choose. The winner has a higher chance of coming up with the next block. As the majority of the network needs to decide on this, the attacker can take advantage of his power to mine his own blocks and keep mining on top of them without waiting for the network’s approval.

Secondly, the attacker who has a 51% majority in the network can decide to cancel transactions. It is possible to destroy a complete network by not accepting any transactions to any of the blocks the attacker selfishly mines.

The third consequence is an issue every blockchain is most worried about and seeks to avoid at all costs. This is called double spending, which involves spending the exact same coin on multiple transactions at the same time. As the decentralized nature of the blockchain prevents double spending, the attacker with 51% has the central authority to do so as the other miners are compromised. Continuous double spending would render a cryptocurrency’s value next to zero.

The last consequence occurs when the attacker creates hardforks on the blockchain. The reason for that could be to take advantage of the double spending that occurs during chain splits. Alternatively, another reason could be to fight against the other miners who may have managed to create a block. In that case, the attacker could fork the chain prior to that new block.

Coins That Have Suffered From 51% Attack: Vertcoin

On December 2, 2018, there was a successful 51% attack on Vertcoin’s network. The repeated 51% attacks on the cryptocurrencies network resulted in the reorganization with the length of 310 blocks and the depth of 307 blocks. According to Nesbitt, the attacks could have caused double spending of up to $100,000.

[Image: vertcoin-min.jpg]
Vertcoin. Not the people’s coin anymore

The attacks started in October 2018 and could have taken place up to before the attack publishing date. The attack has been made easier by Vertcoin’s mining algorithm, which is ASIC-resistant – meaning that ASIC miners can’t be connected to the network, only graphics cards. Nesbitt stated that while this could be a great hedge against centralized mining, it could put the network at risk as anyone using graphics cards in the world can attack Vertcoin, not just ASIC users – as was the case with Bitcoin.


source cryptopotato.com
by Benjamin Vitaris

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Stellar Lumens—IBM Partnership Indispensable as IOTA Reveal Alpha and Omega, Path to
[Image: IOTA-Price-1140x570.jpg]
 Stellar Lumens—IBM Partnership Indispensable as IOTA Reveal Alpha and Omega, Path to Decentralization

Latest Stellar Lumens News

Thing is, if implemented properly, Blockchain will disrupt businesses, governance systems and even value exchanges. Aside from supply chain management, blockchain is definitely shaping for the banking industry.

It’s because of this that Stellar and Ripple—two firms are merging the possibilities of blockchain based solutions in existing financial architecture with the aim of providing financial services for everyone, everywhere–are hailed as the future of finance and banking.

While Ripple is better capitalized, Stellar is fast catching up and executing according to their original road map. Encouragingly, there is progress.

Quote:[Image: FUzjqrR6_bigger.jpg]
[/url]Eric@2ez28u

 · Aug 14, 2018

Replying to @2ez28u and 2 others
The Stellar Development Foundation released an upgraded protocol with a new consensus algorithm in April 2015 which went live in November 2015. The new algorithm used SCP, a cryptocurrency protocol created by Stanford professor David Mazières.

Quote:[Image: FUzjqrR6_bigger.jpg]
Eric@2ez28u


In October 2017, Stellar partnered with IBM and KlickEx to facilitate cross-border transactions in the South Pacific region.The cross-border payment system developed by IBM includes partnerships with many large banks including Deloitte.

1
8:58 PM - Aug 14, 2018
Twitter Ads info and privacy

The recent launch of Interstellar, Stellar collaboration with IBM back in 2017 many more companies are not hesitating from using the platform’s rail fast-tracking the achievement of one of the company’s tenets: That of advancing global financial literacy, advocating for inclusion and providing cheap cross-border solutions.

Quote:[Image: K94Cb2NT_bigger.jpg]
Weiss Ratings@WeissRatings




Stellar’s Lightyear acquired blockchain startup Chain. Companies will merge their brands into “#Interstellar.” Users will move onto the #Stellar ledger, enabling organizations to issue, trade, and manage assets. Stellar is moving fast to catch up to #Ripple (yes, the company).

31
10:05 PM - Sep 11, 2018
Twitter Ads info and privacy


XLM/USD Price Analysis

[Image: Stellar-4HR-Chart-Dec-14.png]

Despite the dip in digital asset prices, XLM has been in range mode for the better part of the year. In fact, just before the recent break below the 15 cents-20 cents main support line, XLM/USD prices were confined in a 15 cents range with caps at 30 cents and floors at 15 cents. Because of this, XLM/USD is trading within a bear breakout pattern and though steady, the path of least resistance is southwards.

Unless otherwise there are gains above Dec 9 highs at 13 cents, bears are likely to drive prices below Dec 6 lows of 10 cents. Once that prints out, it will be inevitable for Stellar to test 8 cents or lower by the end of the year.

However, as it is support is subject to BTC performance and the collapse of the king could send reverberation across the digital asset space.

Our XLM/USD is constant and will be as follows:

Buy: 13 Cents
Stop: 11 Cents
Target: 17 Cents

Latest IOTA News

After days of Coordinator, Coordicide talk and the sober assessment that the platform was to some extent “centralized”, IOTA is moving on towards complete decentralization.
 
Quote:[Image: 7k6y4NkO_bigger.jpg]
Tangleblog.com@tangleblog




It's finally out. The #IOTA foundation has a specific solution for the coordicide. The centralization in IOTA will be gone pretty soon. Which then (if everything works as intended) makes IOTA the only and first project that fulfills Satoshis vision, but without mining, in 2019.

454
7:22 PM - Dec 9, 2018
Twitter Ads info and privacy

The Coordinator is a centralized, protection mechanism shielding the network from double spending. It is a necessary checkpoint in a proof of work mechanism which the network leverage.

With the decoupling will make re-align the network according to the ideals of Satoshi Nakamoto though there is no mining.

[Image: DuMPEKNWwAAC3eZ.jpg]
Quote:[Image: Ypuru0O9_bigger.jpg]
IOTA News@iotatokennews
The concept of [url=https://twitter.com/hashtag/bimodal?src=hash]#bimodal IT has become increasingly popular in traditional industry. Traditionally #bimodalIT has split a department into 2 parts, one dealing with maintenance & support issues, while the other concentrates on innovation & expansion - the #IOTA Alpha & Omega  Team.
36
12:00 PM - Dec 12, 2018

To this end, the IOTA Foundation has unveiled two development teams—the Alpha Team to deal with development within the ecosystem. The Omega team which will see the accomplishment of IOTA’s objectives.

IOT/USD Price Analysis


[Image: IOTA-4HR-Chart-Dec-14.png]

From an effort versus result point of view, IOT/USD is technically bullish all thanks to the Dec 7, 1800HRs price surge.

Even if sellers have an upper hand, sellers are literally trying hard to erase gains of Dec considering IOT/USD has been in consolidation mode in the last week. Better still, prices are confined within Dec 7 high-low. Because of this, our buy triggers are set at 25 cents.

If buy momentum pick up and propel IOTA above this level then first target will be at 34 cents or Nov 21 highs. On the reverse side, losses below 20 cents could ignite panic sells towards 15 cents or lower.

This is our IOT/USD trade plan:

Buy: 25 Cents
Stop: 24 Cents
First Target: 30 Cents


source ethereumworldnews.com
by Dalmas Ngetich

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
Security Token Offering: analysis, problems and prospects
[Image: sto.jpg]
Considering the increasingly strict approach of regulators to tokens and cryptocurrencies in recent years, attracting investments through Security Token Offering (STO) is the next logical step for the industry as a whole and determines the course of its development towards a more civilized and transparent market.

Security Token Offering involves issuing digital assets in full compliance with the requirements of securities legislation, but it does not necessarily mean that it is better in all respects than Initial Coin Offering (ICO).

On the one hand, the new instrument has a number of key advantages, providing a higher degree of protection of investors' rights and a reduction in regulatory risks for issuers. On the other hand, it is associated with much higher costs for the issuer, since STO is a type of private placement of securities, while ICO is essentially just а type of crowdfunding. STOs also deal with a different audience, as only professional investors can participate in such placements. Thus, STO and ICO are rather two different fund-raising mechanisms designed for different situations.

The ICO market boomed in 2017 but lost its former momentum in the second half of 2018. Thus, the total amount of investments attracted through the ICO amounted to more than $17 billion in the first half of the year, but only about $5 billion in July-November. 

However, even if STO dominates the market in subsequent years, ICO will hardly disappear completely as a financing model. Due to the high costs, STO will be suitable primarily for B2B companies and start-ups in later development stages (Round A and later).

In the near future, ICOs are likely to continue to be used by projects in the pre-seed and seed stages, as well as companies with a loyal community, which are more likely to rely on investments from their user base than from institutional investors. If the market reaches the stage of development at which STO aggregators and package proposals for organizing such placements will appear, they are likely to become popular even among small companies and start-ups in the early stages of fund-raising.

How will the Security Token release procedure be carried out and what will be required for this? First, the issuer needs to understand the legislation details and regulatory requirements in the chosen jurisdiction. For example, if a token is planned to be released in the US market, but the issuer does not understand anything in the SEC regulatory base and is unable to distinguish Regulation S from Regulation A or Rule 506(b), it's necessary to turn to a highly qualified lawyer and consultant for securities offering. The choice between the abovementioned exceptions from the securities registration requirement will determine its legal obligations and, therefore, will form the basis of the fund-raising strategy.

Secondly, issuers must be prepared for much higher costs for legal services and compliance. The KYC/AML procedure with this type of placement will consist of several stages. The fact is that no accredited exchange can refuse to carry out the KYC/AML procedure, but at the same time due diligence requirements are imposed on the issuer. For example, the SEC requires each investor to be checked for compliance with the status of “accredited investor”. Such a complex procedure will unpleasantly surprise those who are accustomed to the ICO boom era.

Finally, we should not forget that STO will require a different marketing strategy than the one used to promote ICO. The latter is close to crowdfunding and rests on community building and social media activity. Only professional investors will be able to take part in STO - this is a much more sophisticated audience that is harder to impress. Promotion of the product and business model among professional investors will require much more effort and a large marketing budget.

The future widespread adoption of the STO model seems predetermined, but there may still be a number of obstacles along the way. 

Much will depend on the actions of regulators and their approval of a new scheme of fund-raising. Currently, the Securities and Exchange Commission is leading in regulating digital assets - there is no doubt that most national regulators will emulate the SEC policy on key issues in this area in the coming months.

Another acute problem is the level of liquidity in the nascent STO market. So far, there is only a small number of licensed trading platforms that allow listing of such tools, regulation and compliance experts from Soft-FX point out. The development of a market infrastructure that supports a higher level of liquidity may take a long time. But, of course, it also depends to some extent on the point of view. For example, tokens are less liquid than traditional securities, but, at the same time, they significantly outperform venture capital investments in this regard. It is logical to expect that venture funds will be among the first adherents of STO, both as investors and as issuers (portfolio tokenization is already a very common practice).

It may be too early to say whether new tokens will be able to revolutionize the fund-raising area. One of the key indicators to pay attention to is the number of companies not related to the blockchain industry, which will release tokens in the next few years. STO can be an attractive tool for medium-sized businesses that are not able to bear the costs associated with the traditional private placement of securities. If this happens, it will be possible to state with confidence: STO is serious and lasting.

STO has aroused keen interest to the majority of industry representatives; the tool has become a central topic of discussion at a number of key events throughout the year, but it seems that a common vision of how exactly these tokens should function has not yet been formed. It will take at least another year to create some kind of STO market standard. The massive introduction of a new instrument will require concerted efforts on the part of regulators and institutional investors, with the recent fall in the cryptocurrency market slowing this process down. STO is truly the future of the blockchain industry. The only question is whether it will come in 2019 or only in 2020.


source finextra.com
by Sam Goffman

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure
XRP based Stellar Lumens [XLM] trading pair XLM/XRP to be launched on CoinField
[Image: launch.jpg]
On December 13, CoinField, a popular Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, announced that they were launching Stellar Lumens on the platform as an XRP based pair.

[Image: xxlm.jpg]
Source: Twitter

The upcoming “XLM/XRP” pair will be available alongside six other direct fiat pairings such as with USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, JPY, and AED. The exchange had also made news recently when it was announced that the company’s services had gone live in 61 countries. Even then XRP was the highlight for the first time, CoinField announced trading pairs with XRP with a 0.05% fixed commission rate.

Post the news, Lapinette, a Twitter user had stated:

Quote:“Really good Job ! I’m not Canadian but I’m an XRP holder so I’m so proud of you ! I really hope than other as @binance @BittrexExchange @Bitstamp @eToro … will follow your exemple !

Nick, another Twitter user asked:

Quote:“Why do we keep on trading all this stuff on exchanges instead of spending it..”

Recently, Justin Sun, the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of the Tron Foundation had informed users that Tron had surpassed Stellar Lumens in terms of trading volume. He had tweeted:

Quote:“According to @CoinMarketCap, there are 159 trading pairs of #TRON which already surpassed 157 trading pairs of Stellar. #TRX was already listed on more than 100 exchanges, including Crypto/Crypto & Crypto/ Fiat trading pairs. $TRX”

CoinField has been on an update surge of late with the latest news from the exchange’s stables showing that the USDC stablecoin will be available on the company’s platform. CoinField announced:

Quote:“The #USDC #StableCoin is launching on CoinField on December 21st, 2018. We will enable three new markets: XRP/USDC, BTC/USDC & USD/USDC @circlepay”

The USDC stablecoin has been creating waves in the cryptoverse after several listing announcements. The last cryptocurrency exchange that the stablecoin got listed on was Poloniex.



source ambcrypto.com
by Akash Anand

Read More Read More, Posted by: crytocure

FINANCE with a MISSION to FIGHT POVERTY

Help us Spread the News and Stellar Lumens XLM (Formerly known as STR)
Banner Rules Posting

Welcome, Guest
You have to register before you can post on our site.

Username
  

Password
  



Quick Search

What is STELLAR ?

6 Million transactions for just 20 cents

Partners
Forum Statistics
» Members: 21,276
» Latest member: madamemois
» Forum threads: 21,308
» Forum posts: 78,454

Full Statistics

Latest Threads
Prediksi Skor Terakurat 18 Desember 2018...
Forum: Gambling & Casino Games
Last Post: seo188bola
1 hour ago
» Replies: 0
» Views: 3
DOGE PRO MINER _ CLOUD MINING - 80 DAYS ...
Forum: Mining / Forging / Delegate / Node
Last Post: Akhmadi99
2 hours ago
» Replies: 9
» Views: 194
Blockchain Mining Benefits Beyond the Cr...
Forum: Cryptocurrencies News
Last Post: crytocure
6 hours ago
» Replies: 0
» Views: 7
CRYPTOINCOME | 10% DAILY (PAYMENT PROOF)...
Forum: HYIP, High Risk High Gain & Multilevel, others
Last Post: nxhemn
6 hours ago
» Replies: 4
» Views: 34
EKRANE | LEGIT CLOUD MINING SITE | FREE ...
Forum: Mining / Forging / Delegate / Node
Last Post: nxhemn
7 hours ago
» Replies: 16
» Views: 339
BLUESKYINVEST | 4% DAILY (PAYMENT PROOF)...
Forum: HYIP, High Risk High Gain & Multilevel, others
Last Post: nxhemn
7 hours ago
» Replies: 2
» Views: 17
Get Free Lumens
Forum: $$$$$ Stellar Promotions $$$$$
Last Post: gwformal
8 hours ago
» Replies: 19
» Views: 1,446
MR.DIGICOIN _ CLOUD MINING DOGE, BTC, LT...
Forum: Mining / Forging / Delegate / Node
Last Post: Akhmadi99
9 hours ago
» Replies: 47
» Views: 1,282
Bitcoin Black Airdrop Earn 3600 Bitcoin ...
Forum: $$$$$ Other Coins Promotions $$$$$
Last Post: rezanahvi
11 hours ago
» Replies: 0
» Views: 9
Prediksi Wolfsburg vs Stuttgart terakura...
Forum: Gambling & Casino Games
Last Post: seo188bola
Yesterday, 07:40 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 7
SocialGood Great Airdrop " Get 100$ Valu...
Forum: $$$$$ Other Coins Promotions $$$$$
Last Post: rezanahvi
Yesterday, 07:03 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 8
Coinchase--20$ VALUE of ETH(signup) & 1...
Forum: Faucet, Rotator, Paid to Surf, Paid to Click, Paid to Post, ETC
Last Post: cryptocoins
Yesterday, 06:44 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 12
Prediksi Bologna vs Milan Paling Akurat...
Forum: Gambling & Casino Games
Last Post: seo188bola
Yesterday, 05:43 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 14
Prediksi Bola terbaik 18-19 Desember 201...
Forum: GAMES + Online + Console + Emulator
Last Post: tatabec
Yesterday, 05:25 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 7
Prediksi Skor Bola 18-19 Desember 2018 T...
Forum: Gambling & Casino Games
Last Post: virzuliydu
Yesterday, 04:35 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 10
Btcwin---40/60/80/100 sat. Every 5 min....
Forum: Faucet, Rotator, Paid to Surf, Paid to Click, Paid to Post, ETC
Last Post: cryptocoins
Yesterday, 04:07 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 10
DOGE FIRE _ CLOUD MINING DOGE _( PROOF O...
Forum: Mining / Forging / Delegate / Node
Last Post: Akhmadi99
Yesterday, 03:43 PM
» Replies: 35
» Views: 874
FREE 1000 ER TOKEN WORTH OF 2000 USD PER...
Forum: $$$$$ Other Coins Promotions $$$$$
Last Post: sonnyrib
Yesterday, 03:27 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 19