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Do We Really Want To Tokenize Everything? And Can We?

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, 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, Posted by: crytocure

Why the Marshall Islands Is Trying to Launch a Cryptocurrency

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, 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

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, Posted by: crytocure

What Is The 51% Attack And Why It’s A Dangerous Threat For Cryptocurrencies?

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, Posted by: crytocure

Stellar Lumens—IBM Partnership Indispensable as IOTA Reveal Alpha and Omega, Path to

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:
[/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:
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:
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:
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:
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, Posted by: crytocure

Security Token Offering: analysis, problems and prospects

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, Posted by: crytocure

XRP based Stellar Lumens [XLM] trading pair XLM/XRP to be launched on CoinField

On December 13, CoinField, a popular Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, announced that they were launching Stellar Lumens on the platform as an XRP based pair.

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, Posted by: crytocure

The best way to optimise your cryptocurrency investment portfolio

New research has suggested some key ideas for making the most from your crypto. And it’s not just about HODLing, nor is it just about Bitcoin…

Cryptocurrencies are high risk-high reward assets to invest in and managing those risks comes with significant difficulties.
But a new joint research paper from two UK universities claims to have found the best model to return higher yields on cryptocurrency investments at substantially lower risk.

Researchers Emmanouil Platanakis at the University of Bath and Andrew Urqhart from Henley Business School at the University of Reading released this paper on the SSRN research network.

“The interest in cryptocurrencies is growing especially as an investment,” says the paper, with “the diversification benefits of Bitcoin to other financial assets [clear].”

Collecting weekly data on Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP) and DASH over the course of four years from February 2014 to May 2018, the research team focuses on these four as the most liquid cryptocurrencies, that is, those with the most buyers available when sellers come to the market.

Even given cryptocurrencies’ 80% price drop from their all time high around December 2017-January 2018, there is strong evangelical sentiment among investors that if they hold on, there will be brighter times on the other side.

However, there are ways of managing your investments beyond the naivety of simply HODLing.

For those who are interested, there is a piece of research here which looks at how much investors would have gained or lost had they bought the top 10 cryptocurrencies in December 2017 and enacted no trades at all, instead just holding on to all their initial investments.

Recent research finds “substantial benefits from including Bitcoin in traditional portfolios”, say the pair.

However, “cryptocurrencies have been found to be highly volatile and therefore have higher potential estimation errors in their parameters”.

Estimation errors are a measurement of how accurate a prediction is. Controlling risk in the face of such wild volatility is extremely challenging, even for experienced portfolio managers.

Why diversify?

The received wisdom of investing is to spread your stock or cryptocurrency buys across a wide variety of sectors and providers, in order to minimise risk in the long term.

The methods by which you choose these buy-ins is a source of robust debate among portfolio managers.

The critical questions for any investor are: ‘Where should I allocate assets for the strongest long-term portfolio? Which assets should I buy to provide the best chance of a reasonable return, at the lowest possible risk?’

Investors who are experienced in the stock market will usually hold a basket of different cryptocurrencies, knowing as they do the diversification model.

Platanakis and Urqhart write: “We observe that the Black-Litterman approach…outperforms both the 1/N and Markowitz benchmarks indicating that the advanced portfolio optimisation model offers higher risk-adjusted returns for a cryptocurrency portfolio, inclusive of transaction costs.”

What is Black-Litterman?

Black-Litterman is a mathematical model for predicting the best portfolio allocation; in essence, where investors should put their money. The model was developed by Fischer Black and Robert Litterman at Goldman Sachs in the early 1990s.

Investment analysis research firm MorningStar gives a step-by-step guide to the methodology here.

The other benchmarks noted are 1/N, also known as naive diversification, and Markowitz, a popular method of portfolio management dating back to 1952.

The Black-Litterman model essentially shuns portfolios which are highly concentrated in any particular area.

Platanakis and Urqhart find that the 1/N and Markowitz methods of diversifying a portfolio do not stack up when placed in opposition to Black-Litterman.

Research by The Bank of England came to a similar conclusion, albeit testing on traditional and non-cryptocurrency markets.

Why is this important?

Investors starting to build a portfolio will normally rely on historical analysis, as well as fundamental analysis, to inform which stocks, treasuries or other commodities they might buy into. For traditional, non-cryptocurrency assets, those historical analyses can be developed over the course of decades. Cryptocurrencies are much newer, and don’t have this weight of history behind them.

Transaction costs on trades are often high and can make a significant impact on profits if one trades too frequently. Anyone who has bought cryptocurrencies using Coinbase will know this, at £2.99 per trade, and this is replicated in the traditional market. For the largest retail-focused stock investment platforms like Hargreaves Lansdown, Vanguard or AJ Bell, the cost can be upwards of £7 every time you buy a stock. It makes a reasonable amount of sense to make fewer buys throughout the year.

Platanakis and Urqhart say their research is “robust to the inclusion of transaction costs and short-selling”, which suggests that sophisticated portfolio techniques that control for estimation errors are preferred when managing cryptocurrency portfolios.

Historical returns, for example the amount of dividends a fund has paid out to shareholders in the past, are a reasonable way to broadly estimate future possible returns. The possibility of error is large though.

Blockchain is not going away. Its use cases across digital ID verification, supply chain management or interbank payments are in their very early stages, and yet there is much to cheer.

Conclusion

While these diversification models may seem esoteric, it’s important to investors to be able to make returns on their investments.

The Sharpe ratio, developed in 1966 by economist William Sharpe, is one of the more important tools to rank the performance of a portfolio.

Essentially, it measures the risk-adjusted returns of any investor’s portfolio: one with a higher Sharpe ratio is considered superior to its immediate peers.

Plantanakis and Urqhart’s measurements of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, and DASH from 2014-2018, even allowing for short-selling, show that Black-Litterman model produces the best Sharpe ratio for investors.

[Image: sharpe-ratio.png]

When trying to decide where to put their money for the best returns, investors are effectively trying to predict the future.

This, in its most naked form, is practically impossible. We can make educated guesses based on which companies have good management teams, strong cashflow, low levels of debt and a large market for their products. But to suggest that anything is ever certain is just foolish.

But the lessons we can learn from traditional investing are clear. In the case of this paper, following a Black-Litterman model seems to yield the best results. That means diversifying your investments across sectors, from cryptocurrencies that are intended to take on payments industries, those dealing with supply chain management, to decentralised cloud computing.

Investing only in Bitcoin is a sure-fire way to lose every advantage you had.

source cryptonewsreview.com

Read More, Posted by: crytocure

What Will It Take To Thaw The Crypto Winter?

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg....it%3Dscale]

A handful of developments could help thaw the crypto market's frozen nature.Credit: Getty Royalty FreeGETTY

While digital currencies have been going through a rough patch characterized by lackluster sentiment and low prices, progress in both regulation and infrastructure could help deliver the crypto spring that many are looking for.

Cryptocurrencies have had a rough year, losing more than 80% of their total market value year-to-date, according to CoinMarketCap.

While the total market capitalization (market cap) of these digital assets was more than $600 billion on January 1, that figure had fallen close to $110 billion at the time of report.

The market for initial coin offerings (ICOs), in particular, has been hard-hit, with many entrepreneurs struggling to raise funds using this approach.

Some have criticized the methods used in these token sales, which have frequently involved nothing more than a proposed blockchain-related idea outlined in a white paper.

[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]

Issuers 'Feeling The Pain'

Many of the companies that held these token sales in 2017, a time when the entire market was arguably suffering from ICO mania, have been encountering serious challenges.

"Issuers who went fast and loose in 2017 are feeling the pain," said Matthew Unger, founder and CEO of iComply Investor Services inc.

"The regulators are calling," he noted.

"Law firms are specializing in class action lawsuits - many with multiple wins against the biggest names in crypto."

Ben Tsai, managing partner of Genesis Holdings, offered a similar perspective.

"Currently, we are seeing pressure from regulators on previously raised ICOs," he stated.

"It started with the DAO Token offering being considered a securities offering, then the Munchee’s recision of their tokens after SEC’s directions, and most recently the Airfox/Paragon settlement to push for a recision after the fact."

While companies holding ICOs may be suffering amid this regulatory crackdown, these developments might benefit the broader space.

Industry Transition

"We are now seeing a transition from ICO's to STO's (security token offerings) where the security tokens are built with regulatory compliance to take into account of AML/KYC/investor accreditation/total number of holders/etc." stated Tsai.

He emphasized that in addition to undergoing this shift, "we are seeing more infrastructure being built to support the business."

"Issuance platforms have come a long way," noted Tsai. These "provide a second layer of protocol on top of the blockchain to keep the tokens compliant."

"Custodians are also becoming compliant, with qualified custodians appearing in the past 6 months," he stated.

Stronger Infrastructure

Unger also spoke to the progress in the industry's infrastructure, stating that it has improved significantly over the last year, enabling the ICO market to transition toward security tokens that are fully compliant.

This progress could be the key to pulling the cryptocurrency market out of its current weakness, stated Tsai.

"With the infrastructure in place, we are seeing more legally compliant products being issued," he said.

"This will bring the institutional investors into the market, which will thaw out the Crypto Winter and bring a Crypto Spring."

Market Uncertainty

While Tsai provided an optimistic forecast, nobody knows for certain just how long lackluster market conditions will persist.

"This bear market could last for several years, or we could see it end in a matters of weeks or a month," stated Oliver Isaacs, blockchain investor, advisor & influencer.

"What is clear to me is that digital assets are going survive and be very relevant in a world which is increasingly digital."

source forbes.com
by Charles Bovaird

Read More, Posted by: crytocure

How Is a Schoolboy Millionaire Doing: A Story About the Youngest Bitcoin Richer

[Image: 12_12_Schoolboy-millionaire.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1]

Erik Finman’s life is like a dream. He is the youngest Bitcoin millionaire in the world. His digital wallet stores more than 400 BTC, which at the rate of $20 thousand per one coin was equal to $8 million.

From a schoolboy to a Bitcoin Millionaire

The story of Erik Finman began in 2011, when he was 12 years old. Young man received from his grandmother $1 thousand for college. However, the guy decided to invest them not in education, but in Bitcoin. He was confident that the digital currency has a great future and therefore he will have it, if he buys BTC. A schoolboy purchased Bitcoin on all the money that his grandmother gave him, with the rate of $12 per one coin.

The first million Erik earned at 15 years. Before that, the future millionaire, argued with his parents that he would not go to college if he earned his first million before the age of 18. When the Bitcoin rate first increased in the summer of 2017, Finman became a millionaire. After that, he went into business.

In 2013, Erik’s capital was valued at more than $100 thousand. This fortune pushed the guy to drop out from high school, in order to start his own business. Moreover, the young man was convinced that the secondary school provides with low-quality education.

Quote:
“I had these teachers that were all kind of negative. One teacher told me to drop out and work at McDonald’s because that was all I would amount to for the rest of my life. I guess I did the dropout part.” –said Erik in CNBC interview.

The young entrepreneur founded his own online educational platform Botangle, which helped the young people to find suitable teachers for class via video chat sessions.

January 2015 has been a remarkable for the guy. He sold Botangle for 300 BTC, whose rate at that time was $ 200 per coin. The buyer also offered the guy $100 thousand in exchange for the business. However, Erik was convinced that it was much more promising to make a deal with cryptocurrency.

Quote:
“My parents asked ‘Why don’t you take the more cash? But I thought of it more of an investment.” – Finman explained.

You may ask, what’s the catch? And the catch really is. After all, the guy for $100 thousand could buy 500 BTC instead of 300 BTC.

But he chose cryptocurrency, because the official transaction is accompanied by certain difficulties with which, the underage wouldn’t not cope.

Today, December 2018, Erik has about 400 BTC at his disposal, and the Bitcoin rate varies within $4,000 per coin. That is, Erik’s fortune does not exceed $2 million. Despite the fact that experts like Warren Buffett are confident that the cryptocurrency is a bubble that is about to burst, the young man says:

Quote:
“Personally I think bitcoin is going to be worth a couple hundred thousand to a million dollars a coin”

Some believe that the young millionaire suffers from paranoid syndrome. After an increase of popularity and capital, Erik is obsessed with the security of his assets. For example, he divides his capital into various super secured wallets.

Bitcoin millionaire lifestyle

Erik bought a house in West Hollywood, where he neighbors with young YouTube stars and IT elites. Well, and as usual it happens, the guy had his head turned by his fortune. The first evidence that Finman “went off the rails” was the reusable rental of Lamborghini sports cars.

The insanity did not last long. During this dizzying period, the guy did not insert the diamond teeth, did not fill the wardrobe to the full with clothing. By the way it is half empty. The millionaire dresses very inconspicuously: T-shirts, shorts and jeans.

Erik hated the school so much, that when he bought a car, it was indicative that he chose a number with his average grade of school certificate – 2.1GPA.

All of Erik’s relatives have a higher education, so they really want their children to get a higher education. But, a bet’s a bet,and besides, the guy is not going to college under any circumstances:

Quote:
“The purpose of that would be to get another education level and get a job. I had to learn through running a business. Instead of writing essays for English class, I had to write emails to important people.” – said Erik. “The way the education system is structured now, I wouldn’t recommend it,It doesn’t work for anyone. I would recommend the internet, which is all free. You can learn a million times more off YouTube and Wikipedia.”

The young millionaire eats at Polo Lounge, In-N-Out Burger and other restaurants, depending on his mood. In his free time from work, the guy travels. He likes to have a rest on distant continents, especially Dubai.

[Image: 12_12_Schoolboy-millionaire1.jpg?resize=650%2C325&ssl=1]

[Image: 12_12_Schoolboy-millionaire1.jpg?resize=650%2C325&ssl=1]

Source: https://www.inverse.com

Now Finman is in charge of managing his own and family Bitcoin investments.

The young millionaire’s view of the future of cryptocurrency

The world’s first cryptocurrency by capitalization is not the only digital currency that makes up the capital of the millionaire. Litecoin and Ethereum are also in reserve.

If the young man believes in the future of Bitcoin, the future of Vitalik Buterin’s creation he doubts though. Erik believes that Ethereum’s growth depends on speculation on the crypto market.

source coinshark.net
by lena Leonova

Read More, Posted by: crytocure

DAVINCI JEREMIE SHARES HIS PREDICTION AFTER STELLAR TRACK RECORD OF BITCOIN CALLS

Davinci Jeremie, Chilean software developer and little known Bitcoin guru, who has a stellar track record of Bitcoin calls is back.

ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR LAST CALL

If you’re sick of so-called experts, confidently calling the bottom of the bear market, only for the following week to wipe another [insert obscene amount of money here] off your portfolio… then perhaps you are listening to the wrong experts?
Traders, pundits, gurus, seers, and other alleged diviners of the future are playing a numbers game. If enough of their predictions prove to be correct, they amass followers, devoted to their every word. Conversely, some bad calls can tarnish their reputation, and have everyone claiming that they, ‘always knew he/she was a blowhard’.

[Image: MW-HA004_Davinc_20181210102843_ZH.jpg]

Davinci Jeremie

So, in the never-ending search for future predictions we can trust, maybe we should cast our net further afield. Perhaps even as far as Chilean software developer, and little known Bitcoin guru, Davinci Jeremie.

ON POINT SINCE BITCOIN WAS $1

Back in June 2011, Jeremie was running a YouTube channel discussing gold and silver investments. That’s when he introduced his audience to Bitcoin. At the time, Bitcoin price $3436.85 -0.22% was riding high at $9 a pop, although Jeremie had bought his first coin three months earlier for just $1.

Whilst promoting the virtues of Bitcoin to his followers, he was also voicing concerns about its biggest exchange. Six months before the announcement of the Mt. Gox hack, Jeremie published a video in June 2013, advising his viewers:

Quote:It is my opinion that you should abandon Mt. Gox. I would suggest you move out of it. Do the trade on the day and get out. Do not leave money in there.

BOOM AND BUST

After avoiding (and helping others to avoid) the biggest heist in the history of Bitcoin, Jeremie then rode the wave to the crest. But in December last year, just two weeks before Bitcoin peaked and the tide turned, he advised followers to cash out some of their profits, saying “You’d be a fool to not take some off the table.”

So now 2018 has all but finished happening, what is Jeremie’s latest prediction? Well, as he says in a recent video:

Quote:Anyone who thinks bitcoin’s going to zero doesn’t understand the system. You have the unique opportunity of your lifetime to get into bitcoins.

Of course, if Bitcoin does go to zero then (through our tears) we can laugh about how we ‘always knew the guy was a jerk’. But until then, we can hope that ‘the guy’ maintains his run of prescience/luck, while we cross our fingers and wait for Bitcoin to go a lot higher

source bitcoinist.com
by Emilio Janus

Read More, Posted by: crytocure

UAE, Saudi Arabia to Jointly Launch Cryptocurrency for Interbank Transactions

[Image: dubai-1367094_1920.jpg__740x380_q85_crop...ling-2.jpg]

The central bank of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is reportedly working on a blockchain-based cryptocurrency with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (Sama). The cryptocurrency is set to be used for interbank transactions only.

According to a report published by local news outlet Gulf News, the financial institutions will issue the digital currency to use it in cross-border transactions between both countries. The report quotes Mubarak Rashed Al Mansouri, the governor of the UAE’s central bank, who was speaking at a high-level meeting for global bank standards and regulatory and supervisory priorities for the Arab region.

He was quoted as saying that this is “probably the first time ever” that two countries cooperate on creating a blockchain-based cryptocurrency, and that regulators hope “this achievement will foster similar collaboration in our region.” He added:

Quote:
It’s just a study between UAE and Saudi [Arabia] and have not gone deeper into it. We have not put a framework when the study will be completed and who will be involved from both parties.

Al Mansouri clarified, however, that the cryptocurrency won’t be seen by consumers in general, as it’s set to only be used between banks. Per his words, it will be a way to make interbank transactions “much more efficient.”

In a separate statement, the UAE’s central bank reportedly said:

Quote:
CBUAE and Sama intend to execute a joint crypto-currency and Distributed Ledger Proof-of-Concept (PoC). The PoC’s design mainly focuses on the transfer of ownership of a central bank asset (crypto-currency) among participants.

Notably, the UAE’s central bank, as CryptoGlobe covered, has earlier this year warned against cryptocurrency scams, including money laundering and their use to finance terrorism or other illicit activities, but predicted electronic money would replace cash in the future. Saudi Arabia has also warned against cryptocurrency trading, as cryptos are outside of regulators’ reach.

The space has seemingly been growing in the country, however, as a new cryptocurrency exchange called Bitex was launched there last month. The new trading platform reportedly offers BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC trading pairs.

Reports suggesting Saudi Arabia itself has been planning to launch its own cryptocurrency have been circulating since last month. Per the Innovation Center (SPARC) director of the Sama, Mohsen Al Zahrani, the crypto is set to be launched next year.

source cryptoglobe.com
by Francisco Memoria

Read More, Posted by: crytocure

Stellar Is A Good Plan For 2019

HODLing, or holding on to a certain asset or assets has always been an extremely useful investment strategy, even before cryptocurrencies were even imagined. Now, with the market being more uncertain than ever, many are wondering what is the right thing to do with the coins in their possession.

Of course, things change depending on the coin in question, but today, we are going to talk about why it is a good idea to hold on to your Stellar (XLM)in 2019.

Why You Should Hodl Stellar (XLM)

The crypto market is rich with hundreds, and even thousands of different projects at this point, and separating valuable ones from those that are destined to slowly fade away can be tricky. However, even the biggest skeptics believe that Stellar is a coin that is here to stay.

XLM was first launched in 2014, and for a long time now, it has been among the top 10 cryptos by market cap. It is an open-source, decentralized protocol that allows users to send fiat currencies by using cryptocurrency as a method of transport. In a lot of ways, it is very similar to XRP. However, the biggest difference is that Stellar aims to offer its services to regular people, while XRP is more interested in working with banks and financial institutions.

Nevertheless, sending money, especially when it comes to cross-border transactions, is in dire need of change, and both of these projects aim to be the ones that will revolutionize the process.

Another thing that makes Stellar a very valuable project is its speed — the coin is currently the fastest one on the market. In other words, it is not only a capable payment platform that can send money overseas, but it can also do it within around three seconds.

A huge partnership

Due to its huge potential, Stellar also attracted the attention of a very influential partner — the IBMitself. Partnering up with this company was a massive step forward for Stellar, which basically ensured its substantial presence in the international payment market. Also, it increased its chances to be among the first coins to experience mass adoption, although this will likely have to wait for quite some time until the majority of world’s countries develop proper regulations for handling crypto.

Still, Stellar’s partnership with IBM has also brought it closer to the Australian government, which means that there is a high probability of XLM being adopted in Australia at some point.

Finally, partnering up with the tech giant provided Stellar with a certain level of credibility, which will likely encourage other firms to approach it and propose a partnership.

How does this reflect on XLM price?

So, why is all of this important? Because cryptocurrenciesdepend on their usefulness and reputation, which directly influence the value of the coins. Clearly, 2018 was a bearish year that has damaged the value of numerous cryptocurrencies. Even Bitcoin itself has lost over 80% of its value in the previous 11 months.

With a situation like that, Stellar had no choice in the matter, and the coin ended up experiencing significant losses, just like the rest of the market. However, giants like the IBM are not known for partnering up and investing in projects with no future. The fact that Stellar is their go-to coin is almost a guarantee that the coin will remain. With that in mind, rather than abandoning the coin due to its low price right now, investors are advised to HODL and endure the pressure of a bear market.

Right now, cryptocurrencies are going through a storm, but the storm will eventually end. According to experts, not every coin will survive this process. However, those that do will prosper, and this might even happen very soon. Many believe that 2019 will be the year when cryptos will go big, when institutions will start investing, and when the golden age of digital currencies will start

source globalcoinreport.com
by iBankCrypto

Read More, Posted by: crytocure

AAUC (AA UNION CAPITAL) Investment strategy - US dollar stability

Gyrations of the USD tend to destabilize the world economy and financial markets. USD strength, as seen in H1 2018, can put severe strain on economies that require cheap dollar funding. Any significant weakness in the USD will put pressure on export champions, such as Germany and Japan. It will also raise the specter of inflation as commodity prices tend to rise sharply in response to a weak USD. The best of all worlds is a fairly stable USD. With Fed tightening being well advanced and the European Central Bank as well as the Bank of Japan gradually catching up, chances are good that the USD will indeed be stable.

A broadly stable USD against the majors should provide a platform for Asian currencies to find a firmer footing, especially if there is improved clarity on the trade tensions between the USA and China. A stronger EUR would also allow both the CNY and the SGD to appreciate against the USD without rising too much against their respective trade-weighted baskets, which are important barometers for both Chinese and Singaporean policymakers.

China’s resilience

The US trade policy is putting considerable strain on China. Moreover, after the USA recently renegotiated trade agreements with Mexico, Canada, and South Korea, and amid de-escalating trade tensions with Europe, the US trade stance toward China could harden further. China’s patience is thus likely to be additionally tested. If its policymakers proceed cautiously, as in 2018, risks of instability should be limited and the expansion can be extended. However, any aggressive currency policy, credit easing, or foreign policy would be destabilizing.

Find out more in https://www.aaunioncapital.com/

Read More, Posted by: Milner