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Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/bitcoin-price-falls-below-4000-again-is-another-big-drop-in-store-6/

Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

This year the Boxing Day sales seem to have started a day early for anyone hoping to get exposure to the number one digital asset at a discounted rate. The Bitcoin price and those of other cryptos have been dropping hard since the clock struck midnight last night and this trend has continued since.

At exactly the moment that Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day (in the UK at least), the Bitcoin price was sitting comfortably at around $4,080. Its total market capitalisation has since shed close to $5 billion and the cost of a single Bitcoin is $3,816 at the time of writing.

Xmas Bitcoin Price Drop: Is a Bakkt Delay Behind it?

The precise cause of the market selloff this morning is unknown. However, some are speculating that it may be related to the rumour that the launch of the Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt platform is getting postponed for a second time:

what i see for today and tomorrow for $btc. only thing that will hurt this is the panic sellers cause of #bakkt being extended pic.twitter.com/ol8IOiPA7D

— W҈o҈l҈f҈O҈f҈C҈r҈y҈p҈t҈o҈ (@MaxieX9) December 25, 2018

Although several cryptocurrency news publications have already reported on the story, there has been no official word yet from the Bakkt itself that suggests the launch will indeed be delayed. Given that it is Christmas day, however, this is to be expected.

Reports suggest that the Bakkt platform does not have the necessary approval from the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission yet. Of course, this does not mean that Bakkt will not eventually get a green light from the regulator but it seems unlikely that it will come in time for the late January launch day, that has already been rescheduled once before, in November this year.

Bitcoin Price Continues to Lead the Rest of the Cryptocurrency Market

It is not just the Bitcoin price that is tanking this Christmas Day. As seems to be the norm, the rest of the cryptocurrency market is taking a nose dive. The likes of Ether, XRP, Stellar, EOS, and Litecoin have all suffered double-digit percentage declines.

Leading the top ten in terms of losses, however, is Bitcoin Cash (formerly known as Bitcoin Cash ABC). The cryptocurrency which forked off from the original Bitcoin chain in August 2017 and, more recently, split into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash Satoshi’s Vision has shed almost 20% of its price over the last 24-hours.

A likely cause for the current BCH selling pressure is that Bitmain, one of the largest supporters of Bitcoin Cash, us rumoured to be in the process of letting go of more than 50% of its workforce.

Blockstream’s Samson Mow Tweeted:

“Bitmain has quietly laid off their entire Copernicus team. Only 1-week notice. Some had just joined the company. Layoffs just in time for Christmas.”

Some believe the actual number to be far higher too:

Our insider says more like 75% of all people will be let go https://t.co/F5lVB04waC

— BTCKING555 (@btcking555) December 25, 2018

The rumours have emerged less than one month after the mining hardware giant announced that were closing their Israeli dev centre, which, of course, involved a large number of layoffs.

NewsBTC will bring you more on this story, as well as the Bakkt delay rumours as they develop.

Related Reading: Bakkt and Intercontinental Exchange CEOs Weigh in About Bakkt

Featured Image from Shutterstock.

[cryptnus-blog]

Wall Street is Backing Out of Crypto

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/wall-street-is-backing-out-of-crypto/

Wall Street is Backing Out of Crypto

Wall Street is quietly moving out of the crypto market, Bloomberg reports. While the market has continued to be battered by news of fraud and imminent regulatory crackdowns, there was a time when it seemed like Wall Street had started to warm up to the rise of crypto assets.

Last year, when the crypto industry enjoyed what was probably the biggest bull run in its history, it seemed a lot of mainstream financial companies were also ready to join the bandwagon. Names like Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments and Barclays Bank Plc. were all affiliated with reports to open cryptocurrency divisions, and these speculations sent ripples around the financial industry.

Goldman Sachs’ Trading Desk Dreams

Goldman Sachs was one of the first Wall Street firms to show interest in Bitcoin futures, and rumors claimed that the firm was working on developing a seperate crypto trading desk. The investment bank partnered with Galaxy Digital and led a $57 million series B investment in custodian firm BitGo Holdings Inc., in a bid to offer custody services. Fast-forward to a year later, and Goldman is yet to offer crypto trading. The bank’s Bitcoin derivative product has not made much progress since it launched.

Citigroup Inc.- Digital Asset Receipts

New York-based Citigroup Inc. also reportedly developed a crypto-based product that could help asset management firms and hedge funds reduce the risk they get exposed to when they invest in crypto. The product, known as Digital Asset Receipt, was expected to provide crypto investors with an innovative means of keeping tabs on their investments and offer an additional layer of legitimacy and trust to the fledgling asset class.

Barclays Inc. and Its Crypto Trading Desk

Then we have London-based Barclays Inc. The British bank showed a massive interest in crypto during the boom, hiring energy traders Chris Tyrer and Matthieu Jobbe Duval to help lead its digital assets division. Both were hired to help look into avenues where the bank could make a foray into the crypto world and provide recommendations, especially as rumors swirled that it was considering developing a crypto trading desk of its own. Sadly, Tyrer ended up leaving earlier this year, while Duval remains with the firm. In addition to Tyrer quitting, Barclays also denied any rumors of the crypto trading desk.

So What Happened?

According to the report, there are two reasons for the quiet withdrawal of Wall Street in the market; the downturn in the market and a lack of a regulatory framework on cryptocurrencies. The first reason is relatively simple. 2018 has been a wild ride for the crypto market, with about $700 billion being wiped off. Crypto-based firms are feeling the brunt of this bear market, with news of retrenchments, companies folding up and manufacturers of mining rigs losing profits by the day.  On regulation, it is believed that the continued lack of a specific regulatory framework on cryptocurrencies has continued to deter big names in the financial industry from taking the plunge into the sector.

Hopefully, 2019 will see a rejuvenation in the crypto industry, as well as the introduction of clearer crypto regulations.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/bitcoin-price-falls-below-4000-again-is-another-big-drop-in-store-5/

Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

This year the Boxing Day sales seem to have started a day early for anyone hoping to get exposure to the number one digital asset at a discounted rate. The Bitcoin price and those of other cryptos have been dropping hard since the clock struck midnight last night and this trend has continued since.

At exactly the moment that Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day (in the UK at least), the Bitcoin price was sitting comfortably at around $4,080. Its total market capitalisation has since shed close to $5 billion and the cost of a single Bitcoin is $3,816 at the time of writing.

Xmas Bitcoin Price Drop: Is a Bakkt Delay Behind it?

The precise cause of the market selloff this morning is unknown. However, some are speculating that it may be related to the rumour that the launch of the Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt platform is getting postponed for a second time:

what i see for today and tomorrow for $btc. only thing that will hurt this is the panic sellers cause of #bakkt being extended pic.twitter.com/ol8IOiPA7D

— W҈o҈l҈f҈O҈f҈C҈r҈y҈p҈t҈o҈ (@MaxieX9) December 25, 2018

Although several cryptocurrency news publications have already reported on the story, there has been no official word yet from the Bakkt itself that suggests the launch will indeed be delayed. Given that it is Christmas day, however, this is to be expected.

Reports suggest that the Bakkt platform does not have the necessary approval from the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission yet. Of course, this does not mean that Bakkt will not eventually get a green light from the regulator but it seems unlikely that it will come in time for the late January launch day, that has already been rescheduled once before, in November this year.

Bitcoin Price Continues to Lead the Rest of the Cryptocurrency Market

It is not just the Bitcoin price that is tanking this Christmas Day. As seems to be the norm, the rest of the cryptocurrency market is taking a nose dive. The likes of Ether, XRP, Stellar, EOS, and Litecoin have all suffered double-digit percentage declines.

Leading the top ten in terms of losses, however, is Bitcoin Cash (formerly known as Bitcoin Cash ABC). The cryptocurrency which forked off from the original Bitcoin chain in August 2017 and, more recently, split into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash Satoshi’s Vision has shed almost 20% of its price over the last 24-hours.

A likely cause for the current BCH selling pressure is that Bitmain, one of the largest supporters of Bitcoin Cash, us rumoured to be in the process of letting go of more than 50% of its workforce.

Blockstream’s Samson Mow Tweeted:

“Bitmain has quietly laid off their entire Copernicus team. Only 1-week notice. Some had just joined the company. Layoffs just in time for Christmas.”

Some believe the actual number to be far higher too:

Our insider says more like 75% of all people will be let go https://t.co/F5lVB04waC

— BTCKING555 (@btcking555) December 25, 2018

The rumours have emerged less than one month after the mining hardware giant announced that were closing their Israeli dev centre, which, of course, involved a large number of layoffs.

NewsBTC will bring you more on this story, as well as the Bakkt delay rumours as they develop.

Related Reading: Bakkt and Intercontinental Exchange CEOs Weigh in About Bakkt

Featured Image from Shutterstock.

[cryptnus-blog]

Bitcoin Private Denies Fraud Allegations and Calls for Halt to BTCP Trading

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/bitcoin-private-denies-fraud-allegations-and-calls-for-halt-to-btcp-trading-2/

Bitcoin Private Denies Fraud Allegations and Calls for Halt to BTCP Trading

Bitcoin Private Symbol

Bitcoin Private has confirmed the allegations made by CoinMetrics, reported by CCN yesterday. Calling them “mathemetically accurate,” the development team says that no one on their team knows where the extra coins wound up. Again, CoinMetrics stated that at least 300,000 of them had already been moved through exchanges.

Due to the low take-up by the Bitcoin community of Bitcoin Private (in which users could essentially have claimed free coins on the BTCP blockchain), this is a significant portion of the overall actual supply of Bitcoin Private, or the supply that is in use.

Bitcoin Private has conducted a full audit of the situation and has determined that the blame is with a single developer. The developer is called airk42. He has not contributed to Bitcoin Private since claiming a bounty and completing an “issue” they had out, which was to tweak the import so that BTCP could “add arbitrary transactions as coinbase inputs at a given block height.”

The developer completes the issue, merges his own code, and is sent his reward. One line of code is missing which allows the fork mine to be exploited due to the nodes not properly verifying the falsified fork blocks. […] The missing line of code is as follows: || tx.vout.size() > 1. We determined this after the CoinMetrics report was released.

Bitcoin Private does not believe the developer in question exploited his own mistake. Instead, they believe an unidentified “bad actor” took advantage of the bug during the establishment of the BTCP blockchain.

During the publicly announced fork mine, a bad actor exploited this bug, creating 2 million coins. It went unnoticed by the contribution team until it was uncovered by CoinMetrics.

Bitcoin Private Team Requests Deposits and Withdrawals Be Closed On Exchanges

According to the official statement on the situation, Bitcoin Private has requested that all exchanges immediately stop deposits and withdrawals of Bitcoin Private.

BTCP Contribution team requested for deposits and withdrawals to be closed on exchanges trading BTCP.

The contribution team is unwilling to point fingers at this time, although despite the use of the shielded addresses, exchanges could potentially reveal the identities if they were legally required to do so. Either a lawsuit or a law enforcement agency would have to bring a valid subpoena against the exchanges which essentially laundered the fake coins.

While Bitcoin Private says it could have been anybody, the odds are high it was someone with an intimate knowledge of the Bitcoin Private codebase, someone who would have been sharp enough to notice the bug and utilize it. It was either the author of the bug, someone in the development team, or someone deeply ingrained in the small community with a strong blockchain development background.

As the code was open source, and the fork-mine was announced on Twitter, anyone with sufficient blockchain development knowledge could have exploited it.

They have “contacted HitBTC,” but HitBTC is unlikely to reveal user information on simple request. Exchanges abide by user agreements which guarantee some level of user privacy. They would be opening themselves up to legal action if they were to easily reveal the identity. Instead, legal channels would be the best option to recover the identity of the hacker.

Bitcoin Private To Eliminate All Shielded Coins

To fix the issue, Bitcoin Private has announced they will be eliminating all coins held in shielded addresses. This will eliminate the false coins and will also eliminate a number of legitimate coins. It will require a hardfork which essentially rewrites the blockchain, and in the case of transactions sent to exchanges, it might have a negative economic impact.

CoinMetrics has stated they believe less than 20k legitimate BTCP coins exist in shielded addresses along with 1.7–1.8 million illegitimate coins. Our team is favoring an option to hard fork and remove all shielded coins from existence. While this would cause the 20k legitimate coins to disappear, we believe this is preferable to the alternative of leaving the 1.7–1.8 million illegitimate coins in circulation. This would also fix the over-supply issue.

It should be noted that in the original Zcash and Zclassic protocols, it’s possible to move coins out of shielded addresses, to unshielded addresses. Those who hold shielded BTCP coins are advised to do so immediately because the Bitcoin Private contribution team has said they are moving forward with this solution immediately.

There are a couple of potential outcomes.

The first is that the community, including the miners, overwhelmingly agrees with the notion of eliminating all existing shielded coins and thus things move on as Bitcoin Private’s team would like: as if it never happened.

The other is that two Bitcoin Private chains will emerge, one which preserves all of the shielded addresses and one which does not. This is essentially a DAO Hack situation, which resulted in Ethereum Classic, which still exists today and recently saw some price momentum alongside Ethereum.

The End of Bitcoin Private?

Another possibility is that this is the end of Bitcoin Private. The community fizzles out and the coin trends toward zero, trading in the sub-cent range. It’s happened dozens of times to other blockchains and is well within the realm of reasonability. Plenty of people have been upset by the revelations, here are a few examples:

I looking forward to the community lawsuit vs. Rhett , Jake and the rest of the fuckers, who knew from day one!

— Marksimalist (@skladmann) December 24, 2018

Now I get why this coin is called Bitcoin Private. P for Private-Premine.

— Man on a Ledger (@ManOnALedger) December 24, 2018

Y’all had an attorney and everything for the “funding”. Is that the same lawyer we should address our legal concerns ?

— Johnny Krypto (@Bitcoinator777) December 24, 2018

The “fix” does not, reportedly, seek to eliminate the creation of shielded addresses, which are the whole point of Bitcoin Private. It just intends to eliminate those coins that are already stored in shielded addresses. Again, as a public service announcement, the author recommends anyone with shielded coins to move them to a transparent address until such a time that the hard fork and update are complete.

It would be interesting if the attacker were to do this.

In short, this story isn’t over. The identity of the attacker is likely to be revealed in the coming months, as grumblings of a lawsuit have been heard.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Get Exclusive Crypto Analysis by Professional Traders and Investors on Hacked.com. Sign up now and get the first month for free. Click here.

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Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/bitcoin-price-falls-below-4000-again-is-another-big-drop-in-store-4/

Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

This year the Boxing Day sales seem to have started a day early for anyone hoping to get exposure to the number one digital asset at a discounted rate. The Bitcoin price and those of other cryptos have been dropping hard since the clock struck midnight last night and this trend has continued since.

At exactly the moment that Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day (in the UK at least), the Bitcoin price was sitting comfortably at around $4,080. Its total market capitalisation has since shed close to $5 billion and the cost of a single Bitcoin is $3,816 at the time of writing.

Xmas Bitcoin Price Drop: Is a Bakkt Delay Behind it?

The precise cause of the market selloff this morning is unknown. However, some are speculating that it may be related to the rumour that the launch of the Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt platform is getting postponed for a second time:

what i see for today and tomorrow for $btc. only thing that will hurt this is the panic sellers cause of #bakkt being extended pic.twitter.com/ol8IOiPA7D

— W҈o҈l҈f҈O҈f҈C҈r҈y҈p҈t҈o҈ (@MaxieX9) December 25, 2018

Although several cryptocurrency news publications have already reported on the story, there has been no official word yet from the Bakkt itself that suggests the launch will indeed be delayed. Given that it is Christmas day, however, this is to be expected.

Reports suggest that the Bakkt platform does not have the necessary approval from the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission yet. Of course, this does not mean that Bakkt will not eventually get a green light from the regulator but it seems unlikely that it will come in time for the late January launch day, that has already been rescheduled once before, in November this year.

Bitcoin Price Continues to Lead the Rest of the Cryptocurrency Market

It is not just the Bitcoin price that is tanking this Christmas Day. As seems to be the norm, the rest of the cryptocurrency market is taking a nose dive. The likes of Ether, XRP, Stellar, EOS, and Litecoin have all suffered double-digit percentage declines.

Leading the top ten in terms of losses, however, is Bitcoin Cash (formerly known as Bitcoin Cash ABC). The cryptocurrency which forked off from the original Bitcoin chain in August 2017 and, more recently, split into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash Satoshi’s Vision has shed almost 20% of its price over the last 24-hours.

A likely cause for the current BCH selling pressure is that Bitmain, one of the largest supporters of Bitcoin Cash, us rumoured to be in the process of letting go of more than 50% of its workforce.

Blockstream’s Samson Mow Tweeted:

“Bitmain has quietly laid off their entire Copernicus team. Only 1-week notice. Some had just joined the company. Layoffs just in time for Christmas.”

Some believe the actual number to be far higher too:

Our insider says more like 75% of all people will be let go https://t.co/F5lVB04waC

— BTCKING555 (@btcking555) December 25, 2018

The rumours have emerged less than one month after the mining hardware giant announced that were closing their Israeli dev centre, which, of course, involved a large number of layoffs.

NewsBTC will bring you more on this story, as well as the Bakkt delay rumours as they develop.

Related Reading: Bakkt and Intercontinental Exchange CEOs Weigh in About Bakkt

Featured Image from Shutterstock.

[cryptnus-blog]

Bitcoin Private Denies Fraud Allegations and Calls for Halt to BTCP Trading

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/bitcoin-private-denies-fraud-allegations-and-calls-for-halt-to-btcp-trading/

Bitcoin Private Denies Fraud Allegations and Calls for Halt to BTCP Trading

Bitcoin Private Symbol

Bitcoin Private has confirmed the allegations made by CoinMetrics, reported by CCN yesterday. Calling them “mathemetically accurate,” the development team says that no one on their team knows where the extra coins wound up. Again, CoinMetrics stated that at least 300,000 of them had already been moved through exchanges.

Due to the low take-up by the Bitcoin community of Bitcoin Private (in which users could essentially have claimed free coins on the BTCP blockchain), this is a significant portion of the overall actual supply of Bitcoin Private, or the supply that is in use.

Bitcoin Private has conducted a full audit of the situation and has determined that the blame is with a single developer. The developer is called airk42. He has not contributed to Bitcoin Private since claiming a bounty and completing an “issue” they had out, which was to tweak the import so that BTCP could “add arbitrary transactions as coinbase inputs at a given block height.”

The developer completes the issue, merges his own code, and is sent his reward. One line of code is missing which allows the fork mine to be exploited due to the nodes not properly verifying the falsified fork blocks. […] The missing line of code is as follows: || tx.vout.size() > 1. We determined this after the CoinMetrics report was released.

Bitcoin Private does not believe the developer in question exploited his own mistake. Instead, they believe an unidentified “bad actor” took advantage of the bug during the establishment of the BTCP blockchain.

During the publicly announced fork mine, a bad actor exploited this bug, creating 2 million coins. It went unnoticed by the contribution team until it was uncovered by CoinMetrics.

Bitcoin Private Team Requests Deposits and Withdrawals Be Closed On Exchanges

According to the official statement on the situation, Bitcoin Private has requested that all exchanges immediately stop deposits and withdrawals of Bitcoin Private.

BTCP Contribution team requested for deposits and withdrawals to be closed on exchanges trading BTCP.

The contribution team is unwilling to point fingers at this time, although despite the use of the shielded addresses, exchanges could potentially reveal the identities if they were legally required to do so. Either a lawsuit or a law enforcement agency would have to bring a valid subpoena against the exchanges which essentially laundered the fake coins.

While Bitcoin Private says it could have been anybody, the odds are high it was someone with an intimate knowledge of the Bitcoin Private codebase, someone who would have been sharp enough to notice the bug and utilize it. It was either the author of the bug, someone in the development team, or someone deeply ingrained in the small community with a strong blockchain development background.

As the code was open source, and the fork-mine was announced on Twitter, anyone with sufficient blockchain development knowledge could have exploited it.

They have “contacted HitBTC,” but HitBTC is unlikely to reveal user information on simple request. Exchanges abide by user agreements which guarantee some level of user privacy. They would be opening themselves up to legal action if they were to easily reveal the identity. Instead, legal channels would be the best option to recover the identity of the hacker.

Bitcoin Private To Eliminate All Shielded Coins

To fix the issue, Bitcoin Private has announced they will be eliminating all coins held in shielded addresses. This will eliminate the false coins and will also eliminate a number of legitimate coins. It will require a hardfork which essentially rewrites the blockchain, and in the case of transactions sent to exchanges, it might have a negative economic impact.

CoinMetrics has stated they believe less than 20k legitimate BTCP coins exist in shielded addresses along with 1.7–1.8 million illegitimate coins. Our team is favoring an option to hard fork and remove all shielded coins from existence. While this would cause the 20k legitimate coins to disappear, we believe this is preferable to the alternative of leaving the 1.7–1.8 million illegitimate coins in circulation. This would also fix the over-supply issue.

It should be noted that in the original Zcash and Zclassic protocols, it’s possible to move coins out of shielded addresses, to unshielded addresses. Those who hold shielded BTCP coins are advised to do so immediately because the Bitcoin Private contribution team has said they are moving forward with this solution immediately.

There are a couple of potential outcomes.

The first is that the community, including the miners, overwhelmingly agrees with the notion of eliminating all existing shielded coins and thus things move on as Bitcoin Private’s team would like: as if it never happened.

The other is that two Bitcoin Private chains will emerge, one which preserves all of the shielded addresses and one which does not. This is essentially a DAO Hack situation, which resulted in Ethereum Classic, which still exists today and recently saw some price momentum alongside Ethereum.

The End of Bitcoin Private?

Another possibility is that this is the end of Bitcoin Private. The community fizzles out and the coin trends toward zero, trading in the sub-cent range. It’s happened dozens of times to other blockchains and is well within the realm of reasonability. Plenty of people have been upset by the revelations, here are a few examples:

I looking forward to the community lawsuit vs. Rhett , Jake and the rest of the fuckers, who knew from day one!

— Marksimalist (@skladmann) December 24, 2018

Now I get why this coin is called Bitcoin Private. P for Private-Premine.

— Man on a Ledger (@ManOnALedger) December 24, 2018

Y’all had an attorney and everything for the “funding”. Is that the same lawyer we should address our legal concerns ?

— Johnny Krypto (@Bitcoinator777) December 24, 2018

The “fix” does not, reportedly, seek to eliminate the creation of shielded addresses, which are the whole point of Bitcoin Private. It just intends to eliminate those coins that are already stored in shielded addresses. Again, as a public service announcement, the author recommends anyone with shielded coins to move them to a transparent address until such a time that the hard fork and update are complete.

It would be interesting if the attacker were to do this.

In short, this story isn’t over. The identity of the attacker is likely to be revealed in the coming months, as grumblings of a lawsuit have been heard.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Get Exclusive Crypto Analysis by Professional Traders and Investors on Hacked.com. Sign up now and get the first month for free. Click here.

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Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/bitcoin-price-falls-below-4000-again-is-another-big-drop-in-store-3/

Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

This year the Boxing Day sales seem to have started a day early for anyone hoping to get exposure to the number one digital asset at a discounted rate. The Bitcoin price and those of other cryptos have been dropping hard since the clock struck midnight last night and this trend has continued since.

At exactly the moment that Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day (in the UK at least), the Bitcoin price was sitting comfortably at around $4,080. Its total market capitalisation has since shed close to $5 billion and the cost of a single Bitcoin is $3,816 at the time of writing.

Xmas Bitcoin Price Drop: Is a Bakkt Delay Behind it?

The precise cause of the market selloff this morning is unknown. However, some are speculating that it may be related to the rumour that the launch of the Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt platform is getting postponed for a second time:

what i see for today and tomorrow for $btc. only thing that will hurt this is the panic sellers cause of #bakkt being extended pic.twitter.com/ol8IOiPA7D

— W҈o҈l҈f҈O҈f҈C҈r҈y҈p҈t҈o҈ (@MaxieX9) December 25, 2018

Although several cryptocurrency news publications have already reported on the story, there has been no official word yet from the Bakkt itself that suggests the launch will indeed be delayed. Given that it is Christmas day, however, this is to be expected.

Reports suggest that the Bakkt platform does not have the necessary approval from the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission yet. Of course, this does not mean that Bakkt will not eventually get a green light from the regulator but it seems unlikely that it will come in time for the late January launch day, that has already been rescheduled once before, in November this year.

Bitcoin Price Continues to Lead the Rest of the Cryptocurrency Market

It is not just the Bitcoin price that is tanking this Christmas Day. As seems to be the norm, the rest of the cryptocurrency market is taking a nose dive. The likes of Ether, XRP, Stellar, EOS, and Litecoin have all suffered double-digit percentage declines.

Leading the top ten in terms of losses, however, is Bitcoin Cash (formerly known as Bitcoin Cash ABC). The cryptocurrency which forked off from the original Bitcoin chain in August 2017 and, more recently, split into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash Satoshi’s Vision has shed almost 20% of its price over the last 24-hours.

A likely cause for the current BCH selling pressure is that Bitmain, one of the largest supporters of Bitcoin Cash, us rumoured to be in the process of letting go of more than 50% of its workforce.

Blockstream’s Samson Mow Tweeted:

“Bitmain has quietly laid off their entire Copernicus team. Only 1-week notice. Some had just joined the company. Layoffs just in time for Christmas.”

Some believe the actual number to be far higher too:

Our insider says more like 75% of all people will be let go https://t.co/F5lVB04waC

— BTCKING555 (@btcking555) December 25, 2018

The rumours have emerged less than one month after the mining hardware giant announced that were closing their Israeli dev centre, which, of course, involved a large number of layoffs.

NewsBTC will bring you more on this story, as well as the Bakkt delay rumours as they develop.

Related Reading: Bakkt and Intercontinental Exchange CEOs Weigh in About Bakkt

Featured Image from Shutterstock.

[cryptnus-blog]

Every Major Asset Class Had a Major Fallback in 2018

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/every-major-asset-class-had-a-major-fallback-in-2018-2/

Every Major Asset Class Had a Major Fallback in 2018

The cryptocurrency market is not the only financial asset that has suffered losses and recorded a consistent decline as the year winds to an end. In fact, every major asset class for investment has recorded negative returns or an unchanged performance year. This is the conclusion of a CNBC report summarizing the performance of markets in 2018.

According to the report, the activity dominating the close of the trading year is a series of shorts on stocks, corporate bonds, commodities, government debt, and practically every other asset class available in markets around the world. This comes a few weeks after Morgan Creek founder Anthony Pompliano pointed out that that the S&P 500 lost $755 billion in a little over 4 hours of trading as the general market rout shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

The S&P 500 lost almost $755 BILLION today.

That is more money lost in a single day for public equity investors than all crypto investors combined this year.

The math don’t lie! 🤷🏽‍♂️

— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) December 4, 2018

Misery Across Board

Cryptocurrencies have experienced a mostly negative year, recording a decline in trading volumes, as well as price crashes led by bitcoin which is down roughly 80 percent from its all time high of December 2017. In total, between January and December, about $700 billion of market capitalization has been wiped off cryptocurrencies as investors brace for a so-called crypto winter in the absence of any optimistic predictions coming to fruition.

The cryptocurrency market has lost about $700 billion in capitalization in 2018 | Source: CoinMarketCap

This pain however, is merely a relatively small part of the pain experienced by investors across practically every market in the U.S.A. In October, CNN reported that the Bank of America warned that 14 of 19 bear market signals had been triggered and the turbulence could last. While some investors believed that the prolonged equities bull run which began in March 2009 would still prolong, many accepted that the longest bull run in American history was over.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has endured a calamitous year end | Source: Macro Trends

The latter group turned out to be right, with Market Watch reporting recently that the S&P 500 fell 2.1 percent to 2,417, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 1.6 percent to 22,444. The Nasdaq Composite on its part slipped 3 percent to 6,333 points.

The performance of the S&P 500 has mirrored that of the Dow Jones | Source: Macro Trends

Speaking to CNBC, Head of U.S. Rate Strategy at BMO, Ian Lyngen predicted that the downward movement will continue into 2019. In his words:

All assets have underperformed in 2018 simply because the Fed accelerated the process of tightening monetary policy with a two-pronged approach of both hiking rates and reducing the balance sheet […] “We continue to expect the Fed will hike next year until they break something. The reversal in equities is not the magnitude that has historically led the Fed reverse their policy, so there’s still room to go.

Last Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin spoke to the CEOs of JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Citigroup to discuss ways of calming the equity market rout and confirm presence of sufficient liquidity to aid recovery efforts through commercial and retail lending.

In 2018 There Were Few Winning Options

The only notable winning options in 2018 were commodities like natural gas, wheat, cocoa, oats, palladium and corn. Where will 2019 bring us? Comment below.

Source: Finviz.com

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Get Exclusive Crypto Analysis by Professional Traders and Investors on Hacked.com. Sign up now and get the first month for free. Click here.

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Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/bitcoin-price-falls-below-4000-again-is-another-big-drop-in-store-2/

Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

This year the Boxing Day sales seem to have started a day early for anyone hoping to get exposure to the number one digital asset at a discounted rate. The Bitcoin price and those of other cryptos have been dropping hard since the clock struck midnight last night and this trend has continued since.

At exactly the moment that Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day (in the UK at least), the Bitcoin price was sitting comfortably at around $4,080. Its total market capitalisation has since shed close to $5 billion and the cost of a single Bitcoin is $3,816 at the time of writing.

Xmas Bitcoin Price Drop: Is a Bakkt Delay Behind it?

The precise cause of the market selloff this morning is unknown. However, some are speculating that it may be related to the rumour that the launch of the Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt platform is getting postponed for a second time:

what i see for today and tomorrow for $btc. only thing that will hurt this is the panic sellers cause of #bakkt being extended pic.twitter.com/ol8IOiPA7D

— W҈o҈l҈f҈O҈f҈C҈r҈y҈p҈t҈o҈ (@MaxieX9) December 25, 2018

Although several cryptocurrency news publications have already reported on the story, there has been no official word yet from the Bakkt itself that suggests the launch will indeed be delayed. Given that it is Christmas day, however, this is to be expected.

Reports suggest that the Bakkt platform does not have the necessary approval from the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission yet. Of course, this does not mean that Bakkt will not eventually get a green light from the regulator but it seems unlikely that it will come in time for the late January launch day, that has already been rescheduled once before, in November this year.

Bitcoin Price Continues to Lead the Rest of the Cryptocurrency Market

It is not just the Bitcoin price that is tanking this Christmas Day. As seems to be the norm, the rest of the cryptocurrency market is taking a nose dive. The likes of Ether, XRP, Stellar, EOS, and Litecoin have all suffered double-digit percentage declines.

Leading the top ten in terms of losses, however, is Bitcoin Cash (formerly known as Bitcoin Cash ABC). The cryptocurrency which forked off from the original Bitcoin chain in August 2017 and, more recently, split into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash Satoshi’s Vision has shed almost 20% of its price over the last 24-hours.

A likely cause for the current BCH selling pressure is that Bitmain, one of the largest supporters of Bitcoin Cash, us rumoured to be in the process of letting go of more than 50% of its workforce.

Blockstream’s Samson Mow Tweeted:

“Bitmain has quietly laid off their entire Copernicus team. Only 1-week notice. Some had just joined the company. Layoffs just in time for Christmas.”

Some believe the actual number to be far higher too:

Our insider says more like 75% of all people will be let go https://t.co/F5lVB04waC

— BTCKING555 (@btcking555) December 25, 2018

The rumours have emerged less than one month after the mining hardware giant announced that were closing their Israeli dev centre, which, of course, involved a large number of layoffs.

NewsBTC will bring you more on this story, as well as the Bakkt delay rumours as they develop.

Related Reading: Bakkt and Intercontinental Exchange CEOs Weigh in About Bakkt

Featured Image from Shutterstock.

[cryptnus-blog]

Every Major Asset Class Had a Major Fallback in 2018

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/every-major-asset-class-had-a-major-fallback-in-2018/

Every Major Asset Class Had a Major Fallback in 2018

The cryptocurrency market is not the only financial asset that has suffered losses and recorded a consistent decline as the year winds to an end. In fact, every major asset class for investment has recorded negative returns or an unchanged performance year. This is the conclusion of a CNBC report summarizing the performance of markets in 2018.

According to the report, the activity dominating the close of the trading year is a series of shorts on stocks, corporate bonds, commodities, government debt, and practically every other asset class available in markets around the world. This comes a few weeks after Morgan Creek founder Anthony Pompliano pointed out that that the S&P 500 lost $755 billion in a little over 4 hours of trading as the general market rout shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

The S&P 500 lost almost $755 BILLION today.

That is more money lost in a single day for public equity investors than all crypto investors combined this year.

The math don’t lie! 🤷🏽‍♂️

— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) December 4, 2018

Misery Across Board

Cryptocurrencies have experienced a mostly negative year, recording a decline in trading volumes, as well as price crashes led by bitcoin which is down roughly 80 percent from its all time high of December 2017. In total, between January and December, about $700 billion of market capitalization has been wiped off cryptocurrencies as investors brace for a so-called crypto winter in the absence of any optimistic predictions coming to fruition.

The cryptocurrency market has lost about $700 billion in capitalization in 2018 | Source: CoinMarketCap

This pain however, is merely a relatively small part of the pain experienced by investors across practically every market in the U.S.A. In October, CNN reported that the Bank of America warned that 14 of 19 bear market signals had been triggered and the turbulence could last. While some investors believed that the prolonged equities bull run which began in March 2009 would still prolong, many accepted that the longest bull run in American history was over.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has endured a calamitous year end | Source: Macro Trends

The latter group turned out to be right, with Market Watch reporting recently that the S&P 500 fell 2.1 percent to 2,417, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 1.6 percent to 22,444. The Nasdaq Composite on its part slipped 3 percent to 6,333 points.

The performance of the S&P 500 has mirrored that of the Dow Jones | Source: Macro Trends

Speaking to CNBC, Head of U.S. Rate Strategy at BMO, Ian Lyngen predicted that the downward movement will continue into 2019. In his words:

All assets have underperformed in 2018 simply because the Fed accelerated the process of tightening monetary policy with a two-pronged approach of both hiking rates and reducing the balance sheet […] “We continue to expect the Fed will hike next year until they break something. The reversal in equities is not the magnitude that has historically led the Fed reverse their policy, so there’s still room to go.

Last Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin spoke to the CEOs of JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Citigroup to discuss ways of calming the equity market rout and confirm presence of sufficient liquidity to aid recovery efforts through commercial and retail lending.

In 2018 There Were Few Winning Options

The only notable winning options in 2018 were commodities like natural gas, wheat, cocoa, oats, palladium and corn. Where will 2019 bring us? Comment below.

Source: Finviz.com

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Get Exclusive Crypto Analysis by Professional Traders and Investors on Hacked.com. Sign up now and get the first month for free. Click here.

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[cryptnus-blog]

Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/bitcoin-price-falls-below-4000-again-is-another-big-drop-in-store/

Bitcoin Price Falls Below $4,000 Again: Is Another Big Drop in Store?

This year the Boxing Day sales seem to have started a day early for anyone hoping to get exposure to the number one digital asset at a discounted rate. The Bitcoin price and those of other cryptos have been dropping hard since the clock struck midnight last night and this trend has continued since.

At exactly the moment that Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day (in the UK at least), the Bitcoin price was sitting comfortably at around $4,080. Its total market capitalisation has since shed close to $5 billion and the cost of a single Bitcoin is $3,816 at the time of writing.

Xmas Bitcoin Price Drop: Is a Bakkt Delay Behind it?

The precise cause of the market selloff this morning is unknown. However, some are speculating that it may be related to the rumour that the launch of the Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt platform is getting postponed for a second time:

what i see for today and tomorrow for $btc. only thing that will hurt this is the panic sellers cause of #bakkt being extended pic.twitter.com/ol8IOiPA7D

— W҈o҈l҈f҈O҈f҈C҈r҈y҈p҈t҈o҈ (@MaxieX9) December 25, 2018

Although several cryptocurrency news publications have already reported on the story, there has been no official word yet from the Bakkt itself that suggests the launch will indeed be delayed. Given that it is Christmas day, however, this is to be expected.

Reports suggest that the Bakkt platform does not have the necessary approval from the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission yet. Of course, this does not mean that Bakkt will not eventually get a green light from the regulator but it seems unlikely that it will come in time for the late January launch day, that has already been rescheduled once before, in November this year.

Bitcoin Price Continues to Lead the Rest of the Cryptocurrency Market

It is not just the Bitcoin price that is tanking this Christmas Day. As seems to be the norm, the rest of the cryptocurrency market is taking a nose dive. The likes of Ether, XRP, Stellar, EOS, and Litecoin have all suffered double-digit percentage declines.

Leading the top ten in terms of losses, however, is Bitcoin Cash (formerly known as Bitcoin Cash ABC). The cryptocurrency which forked off from the original Bitcoin chain in August 2017 and, more recently, split into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash Satoshi’s Vision has shed almost 20% of its price over the last 24-hours.

A likely cause for the current BCH selling pressure is that Bitmain, one of the largest supporters of Bitcoin Cash, us rumoured to be in the process of letting go of more than 50% of its workforce.

Blockstream’s Samson Mow Tweeted:

“Bitmain has quietly laid off their entire Copernicus team. Only 1-week notice. Some had just joined the company. Layoffs just in time for Christmas.”

Some believe the actual number to be far higher too:

Our insider says more like 75% of all people will be let go https://t.co/F5lVB04waC

— BTCKING555 (@btcking555) December 25, 2018

The rumours have emerged less than one month after the mining hardware giant announced that were closing their Israeli dev centre, which, of course, involved a large number of layoffs.

NewsBTC will bring you more on this story, as well as the Bakkt delay rumours as they develop.

Related Reading: Bakkt and Intercontinental Exchange CEOs Weigh in About Bakkt

Featured Image from Shutterstock.

[cryptnus-blog]

Litecoin Plus (LCP) Price Reaches $0.0410 on Major Exchanges

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/litecoin-plus-lcp-price-reaches-0-0410-on-major-exchanges-2/

Litecoin Plus (LCP) Price Reaches $0.0410 on Major Exchanges

Litecoin Plus (CURRENCY:LCP) traded down 32.4% against the dollar during the 1-day period ending at 9:00 AM E.T. on December 25th. One Litecoin Plus coin can currently be purchased for approximately $0.0410 or 0.00001081 BTC on major exchanges. Litecoin Plus has a market capitalization of $87,947.00 and approximately $155.00 worth of Litecoin Plus was traded on exchanges in the last 24 hours. Over the last seven days, Litecoin Plus has traded down 6.6% against the dollar.

Here is how other cryptocurrencies have performed over the last 24 hours:

Novacoin (NVC) traded down 7.3% against the dollar and now trades at $0.53 or 0.00013962 BTC.

vTorrent (VTR) traded flat against the dollar and now trades at $0.10 or 0.00001375 BTC.

Sequence (SEQ) traded 13.3% lower against the dollar and now trades at $0.0232 or 0.00000609 BTC.

42-coin (42) traded down 10% against the dollar and now trades at $18,286.46 or 4.80700824 BTC.

LiteDoge (LDOGE) traded 9.6% lower against the dollar and now trades at $0.0000 or 0.00000001 BTC.

WomenCoin (WOMEN) traded 5.4% lower against the dollar and now trades at $0.0000 or 0.00000000 BTC.

BitBar (BTB) traded down 8.9% against the dollar and now trades at $3.50 or 0.00091970 BTC.

Rupaya (RUPX) traded 11.5% lower against the dollar and now trades at $0.0034 or 0.00000089 BTC.

BriaCoin (BRIA) traded down 5.4% against the dollar and now trades at $0.14 or 0.00003680 BTC.

SpaceCoin (SPACE) traded flat against the dollar and now trades at $0.0040 or 0.00000062 BTC.

Litecoin Plus Coin Profile

LCP is a PoW/PoS coin that uses the Scrypt hashing algorithm. It was first traded on September 8th, 2017. Litecoin Plus’ total supply is 2,144,825 coins. The official website for Litecoin Plus is litecoinplus.co. Litecoin Plus’ official Twitter account is @Media_LCP.

Buying and Selling Litecoin Plus

Litecoin Plus can be traded on the following cryptocurrency exchanges: Cryptopia. It is usually not presently possible to purchase alternative cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin Plus directly using U.S. dollars. Investors seeking to trade Litecoin Plus should first purchase Ethereum or Bitcoin using an exchange that deals in U.S. dollars such as Gemini, Changelly or GDAX. Investors can then use their newly-acquired Ethereum or Bitcoin to purchase Litecoin Plus using one of the aforementioned exchanges.

Receive News & Updates for Litecoin Plus Daily – Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and updates for Litecoin Plus and related cryptocurrencies with MarketBeat.com’s FREE CryptoBeat newsletter.

[cryptnus-blog]

Stellar Price Down 10% but Fighting EOS for the Top 5 Spot

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/stellar-price-down-10-but-fighting-eos-for-the-top-5-spot-4/

Stellar Price Down 10% but Fighting EOS for the Top 5 Spot

Ever since the bull run on December 17th various cryptocurrencies have been overtaking each other for their spots on the top 10 ladder. In the case of Stellar and EOS, the two have been fighting for the top position since last month. In mid November Stellar overtook EOS for the top 5 spot, then on December 17th EOS overtook Stellar for the top 4 spot. Just now, Stellar briefly overtook EOS before dropping back behind, the two are fighting for the top 5 spot, right behind Bitcoin Cash.

It is important to note that EOS and Stellar are not competitors when it comes to their technologies. Instead, EOS is more of an Ethereum competitor while Stellar is a Ripple competitor. EOS is a smart contracts platform which one can use to launch ICOs and other dApps. On the other hand, XLM is a digital asset designed to move funds across accounts with high speed and low overhead.

Why does it matter?

Who cares which cryptocurrency is in which spot? While in the big picture it doesn’t really matter whether Stellar is in the number 5 or number 4 spot, instead what the rankings could indicate is a demand for certain technologies.

What I mean by that is, with XRP being the second ranked cryptocurrency if Stellar also overtakes EOS that shows a strong bias for digital assets like XRP and XLM which can be adopted by financial institutions and the technology be put to use – which would bring it value.

On the other hand, EOS falling behind shows that as of right now there might not be such a high demand for smart contracts platforms after all. That may be because ICOs are no longer trending or because Ethereum already fulfills the needs of developers.

XLM Price Analysis

Most cryptocurrency charts are looking extremely similar right now, since markets have converged and are following Bitcoin’s movement. I will reiterate what we discussed in our XRP price analysis article earlier today:

“The price has bounced off the bottom bollinger bands and the RSI is recovering which is suggesting a bounce off the support line”

At a time like this it is important to keep track of the market maker – Bitcoin’s price. BTC is holding its new support of $3800 relatively well and the overall market cap is sitting at $120 billion. If the price can remain steady in the next few hours, more likely than not XLM and other cryptocurrencies will retest their resistance levels.

Stellar Lumens on Coinbase?

What will really give XLM the push it needs to settle in the Top 4 spot right behind Ethereum is if Coinbase decides to add it. However, because Coinbase didn’t even add XRP yet, one can only hope that XLM will be integrated anytime soon. The good news is, Coinbase did mention both XRP and XLM in a recent announcement so having Stellar listed on Coinbase is definitely a possibility, the real question is when?

Will #Santa give us our #Christmas present?

We just want one Santa..$XLM on Coinbase..#XLM @coinbase pic.twitter.com/QuZuKRpDpK

— Coffee and Coins (@brotherach) December 25, 2018

It is unclear as to why Coinbase hasn’t listed XRP yet, we can only speculate that the issue has something most likely to do with regulation and how XRP is a digital asset and not a traditional cryptocurrency. As such, it may be classified differently under relevant laws which means Coinbase needs time to figure things out with regulators.

In a blog post at the beginning of December, Coinbase said:

“We are continuing to explore the addition of new assets, and will be working with local banks and regulators to add them in as many jurisdictions as possible.”

The post goes on to list 31 assets that it is exploring, both XLM and XRP are mentioned. Here is the full list:

“Cardano (ADA), Aeternity (AE), Aragon (ANT), Bread Wallet (BRD), Civic (CVC), Dai (DAI), district0x (DNT), EnjinCoin (ENJ), EOS (EOS), Golem Network (GNT), IOST (IOST), Kin (KIN), Kyber Network (KNC), ChainLink (LINK), Loom Network (LOOM), Loopring (LRC), Decentraland (MANA), Mainframe (MFT), Maker (MKR), NEO (NEO), OmiseGo (OMG), Po.et (POE), QuarkChain (QKC), Augur (REP), Request Network (REQ), Status (SNT), Storj (STORJ), Stellar (XLM), XRP (XRP), Tezos (XTZ), and Zilliqa (ZIL).”

XLMUSD Charts by Tradingview

Disclaimer: This is not trading or investment advice. The above article is for entertainment and education purposes only. Please do your own research before purchasing or investing into any cryptocurrency.

[cryptnus-blog]

Centralization Cannot Sustain Society--Enter Blockchain Technology

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/centralization-cannot-sustain-society-enter-blockchain-technology-2/

Centralization Cannot Sustain Society--Enter Blockchain Technology

Centralization Cannot Sustain Society–Enter Blockchain Technology

December 25, 2018 by Bitsonline Guest Contributor

Blockchain is set to take us back to the future. In the beginning, the internet was a system owned by no one and everyone at the same time. This was instrumental in its explosion in popularity–anyone, from anywhere, could create content and share it with the world. In that ungoverned system, neither governmental nor business forces were able to control or restrict the web, its users, or the information on it.

Guest article by Jonas Sevel Karlberg, CEO of AmaZix

This story is the first in a three-part series called “Three Reasons Why the Future is Blockchain”.

Also see: New White House Bitcoin Supporter Unlikely to Cause a Crypto Stir

Subscribe to the Bitsonline YouTube channel for great videos featuring industry insiders & experts

Then the Internet Changed

More recently, commercialization driven by large, dominant actors has led to the creation of a system where we are shown information paid for and placed by the wealthy and powerful. Tech giants, big business, and even governments now actively police not only what we can do on the internet, but they also have unrivaled and unprecedented ability to watch us do it.

This is not how the internet should operate, and it doesn’t have to continue to function this way. Introducing blockchain: a distributed ledger network created through a commitment to achieve decentralization and democratization. Blockchain offers a solution to the monopolization that currently dominates the internet.

Corrupted by Commercialization

Although the internet is still largely physically decentralized, it now depends on large, centralized services to support its critical components such as web hosting, cloud computing, DNS services, social media, search engines, email services, and many more.

Google Chrome is among the most popular web browsers in the world–Android smartphones, along with the ubiquitous Google Suite, combine to give Google hegemony over the internet. Indeed, as Mozilla’s Internet Health Report 2018 shows, more than 90 percent of internet users use Google Search.

Other giant companies have similar control in other areas, with Amazon dominating cloud storage and Facebook governing social networking. The ability of these global behemoths to observe what people do on the internet at an unprecedented level is part of the reason for their dominant positions, and it allows them to exploit that information for their own commercial and financial gain.

More concerning is their ability to dictate what consumers can and can’t see–search results are ranked according to advertising revenue, and are filtered by location and government, subtly concealing advertising based on consumer behaviors and demographics. Accuracy, fairness, and relevance of information are secondary to popularity, price, and commercial value.

This betrays the ideals upon which the internet was built. What we do is only by permission of some central entity. Want to buy something online? You can, but only if your bank or payment processor pays the merchant on your behalf. Want to say hello to a friend halfway across the world? Sure, but only if Facebook relays the message for you.

Giving Information Back to the Community

First, it’s important to distinguish between architectural and political decentralization. The former refers to the number of computers that make up a system, while the latter concerns how many individuals or organizations ultimately control that system.

Blockchain uses both to take ownership of information away from giant, authoritarian tech companies, and put it back in the hands of ordinary people.

In a decentralized system, the internet becomes a community of users and a network of independent machines that power and host information. This not only removes central hands from the levers of control, but also makes systems more resilient to hacks and failures.

Blockchain is already decentralizing monetary transactions, among other things, and will be vital in the creation of a sustainable decentralized internet. It enables decentralized web hosting, protecting against DDoS attacks by replacing centralized servers with thousands of nodes, each of which constitutes a small part of a website. This is the basis of architectural decentralization, and is a necessary change given notable recent data breaches.

In turn, architectural decentralization promotes political decentralization, handing control of information back to users. Distributed ledgers at the center of blockchain not only protect against data breaches, but also prevent companies that store information from using it for their own commercial benefit, sharing it with governments, or selling it to third parties without user consent. By storing data across a distributed network, blockchain technology makes sure that individuals retain ownership of their information.

Decentralization Via Blockchain Technology Is Coming

Decentralization is the way forward, but there are undoubtedly several challenges to overcome along the way which must be solved if the transformative potential of blockchain is to be realized.

The most significant issue currently facing blockchain systems is scalability, and this is limiting mainstream adoption of the technology. Protecting privacy is also vital if user data and information is to be properly guarded, given that blockchain currently relies on pseudonymity rather than anonymity.

The biggest challenge to be solved, though, is the sluggish adoption of, and familiarity with, the underlying technology. If a decentralized internet is to re-emerge, people beyond the blockchain and crypto communities must engage with and support it. This means the pervading cynical perception of blockchain has to be defeated.

The bottom line is that centralization cannot sustain society. The decentralization revolution has been quietly underway for longer than you might think, and blockchain is about to step it up a gear.

The cryptosphere is driven by its unique capacity for collective development and a common belief in the transformative potential of technology for improving society as a whole. If anyone can transform the decentralized dream into a reality, the crypto community can.

Have your say. Are you excited by the democratization potential blockchain offers all of us?

Images via Pixabay

« Binance Launches XRP Trading Pairs, Renames ETH Markets to ‘ALTS’

[cryptnus-blog]

$EURAUD: Looking to short, but need a trading signal.

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/euraud-looking-to-short-but-need-a-trading-signal/

$EURAUD: Looking to short, but need a trading signal.

$EURAUD: Looking to short, but need a trading signal.

Euro Fx/Australian Dollar FX:EURAUD

maxw3st

This one will go higher with risk sentiment, but looks to be in a historically extreme high zone. May well be going for 1.65. I think we’ll see a failure to progress much past 1.6250. Technicals look higher also. There’s a little bearish RSI divergence on the hourly, but the daily still looks higher.

[cryptnus-blog]

Nigerian Blockchain Experts Believe Crypto Can Boost African Economy

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/nigerian-blockchain-experts-believe-crypto-can-boost-african-economy/

Nigerian Blockchain Experts Believe Crypto Can Boost African Economy

When we talk about worldwide crypto adoption, one of the most untapped places in the world is Africa. Nigerian blockchain experts have called for greater regulation of cryptocurrency on the African continent to strengthen the sector in the region and to help boost the economy.

Although most crypto-fanatics will pour scorn on any talk of regulatory measures, some experts believe that the crypto industry, especially in Africa, needs reigning in and needs to be guided in the right direction for the betterment of all.

Nigerian Blockchain Experts at Luno Meet

At the recent Luno Meet in Nigeria titled “Building Trust in the Nigerian Cryptocurrency Market”, some of the nation’s most qualified crypto experts have been discussing the best way forward for not only the Nigerian blockchain industry but also right across the continent.

The Chief Operating Officer of Blockchain Solutions Limited, Lucky Uwakwe, told the audience that cryptocurrency is on the rise globally and that 65% of people are now aware of crypto. Uwakwe cited research from Luno Nigeria that 25% of people in the study now own crypto in some form. He cited from the research that 51% saw crypto as an investment, 16% used crypto for online shopping and that 19% of people in the study used crypto for remittance.

Although the study and the stats seem a bit contrived, the overriding issue that Uwakwe was trying to put across is that crypto is on the rise and that Nigeria needs to get up to speed or will get left behind in the cold. When addressing the audience, Uwakwe was quoted as saying:

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency to use peer to peer technology; It is a simpler implementation of blockchain technology; Functions as a payment tool that can be used to send money, and carries value as an investment tool.

Making Africa Great Again!

Also speaking at the Luno event, Country Manager and Nigerian blockchain expert Owenize Odia talked about how regulation is a pivotal issue that can help cement trust in the Nigerian and African crypto sectors by saying:

Regulation is key but should be county specific, since it can bring about credibility to market, even though banks try to distant their operations from cryptocurrency.

Odia also touched on other aspects of crypto adoption and talked about how the decentralized and universal nature of crypto could help to drive the Nigerian economy while also meeting with the needs of the people. It seems it’s only a matter of time before more regulatory measures are imposed on the Nigerian crypto markets for better or worse.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Here’s Why the Predicted 10 USD Ripple (XRP) Value Is Still Achievable This Year (XRP News Today)

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/heres-why-the-predicted-10-usd-ripple-xrp-value-is-still-achievable-this-year-xrp-news-today-16/

Here’s Why the Predicted 10 USD Ripple (XRP) Value Is Still Achievable This Year (XRP News Today)

A lot of Ripple enthusiasts were extremely excited about the release of the Codius smart contract platform because it was released by Stefan Thomas – the former CTO at Ripple, who now runs Coil. This means that the new platform is an extension of the Ripple family.

The goal of the chief is to introduce the interoperability of the various blockchains and also to devise new ways to monetize the web, instead of the conventional way of doing things. Hence, this is a good reason to be bullish about the coin.

Will the Value of the Coin Reach the $10 Mark with Codius Alone?

Definitely not, Ripple requires more than an innovative smart contract platform to skyrocket its value in the digital currency market. One crucial factor that will boost the value of the coin is the newly launched SBI Virtual Currencies digital currency exchange.

The trading platform focuses only on Ripple (XRP). The reason is that the parent firm of SBI Holdings has been a partner of the Ripple firm for more than two years now.

Yoshitaka Kitao Has Been Bullish About the Digital Currency

Yoshitaka Kitao – the CEO of the company, has been bullish regarding a $10 Ripple all year long. He has tweeted several times regarding the price prediction of the coin and is serious about the recent SBI Virtual Currencies trading platform.

Another factor that could increase the value of the coin is the latest statements of the CEO of Ripple – Brad Garlinghouse, that a lot of banks will be utilizing the products of Ripple by 2019. This means that these remittance service providers and financial institutions will most likely use xRapid which is presently the only product of Ripple that utilizes XRP to source instant liquidity for cross-border transactions.

This means that the more xRapid is utilized, the more XRP is sourced from the supply, creating a wave effect of demand that will slow but steadily increase the value of the digital currency.

Even as the crypto market searches for a bottom, Ripple continues to make major expansion moves across the globe. The company recently made a move in Israel by entering into a partnership with the 5th largest financial institution in the world and the largest bank in Israel, GMT. This is all in a bid to boost the financial industry there and consolidate the company’s dominance in the region.

GMT issued a public announcement stating that both companies share a similar philosophy and this has helped them to reach mutually beneficial terms after discussing in details. Part of the announcement was as follows:

“After a precise and long discussion process, GMT has decided to chose Ripple. By working with Ripple and its partners, we would contribute in creating a global financial system using high-end values and technology that will be affordable and transparent.”

“GMT is joining establishments like CIBC, MoneyGram, AKBANK, MoneyGram and many others who have already started using the Ripple platform. With this partnership, GMT will be establishing its place in the forefront of the FinTech industry in Israel. It will also work hand in hand with some of the leading companies in the world.”

AkBank In Turkey Starts Using Ripple’s Tech

As Ripple cements it relationship with the financial institutions in Israel, it is also making moves in Turkey. One of the major banks in Turkey, AkBank, has just started using Ripple’s xRapid technology. Even if the launch of the technology was just announced, the project has been ongoing for more than 12 months.

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