Saturday, November 11, 2017

Bitcoin Cash Surges as Businesses Abandon Legacy BTC

 


Bitcoin cash is enjoying a new lease of life as major figures throw their weight behind the chain. In the wake of the abortive Segwit split, neither bitcoin nor B2x has prospered, with the latter failing to materialize and the former dropping below $6,800 for the first time in 10 days. BCH, meanwhile, hit $866 earlier today.

All Aboard The BCH Express
As the elation, anger, and acrimony over Segwit2x has started to settle, focus has returned to the seemingly intractable problems of bitcoin scaling and transaction fees. Given the difficulty of attaining consensus for developments of the bitcoin network, many have grown frustrated by the stalemate, with widespread Segwit adoption and Lightning Network implementation still months or years away.

Bitcoin Cash Surges as Businesses Abandon Legacy BTCWith bitcoin currently unsuitable for small transactions due to high fees, various businesses and public figures have expressed their preference for a cryptocurrency more suited to everyday use. For some, this has meant looking to the world of altcoins, where the likes of Litecoin and Dash beckon. For those keen to stick with the bitcoin brand, however, bitcoin cash looks increasingly attractive.

One member of the Openbazaar team tweeted:
Hearing lots of great things about @BitcoinCash $BCH today. Many developers and businesses seem better aligned with the vision now that 2x has failed.

The team running the P2P marketplace have every reason to be extolling the virtues of bitcoin cash, having announced that they'll be accepting BCH on account of its cheaper fees along with zcash. As businesses have wrestled over what to do with a legacy bitcoin that's becoming increasingly un-transactable, the BCH team have wasted no time in wooing defectors, stating:

BTC's utility continues to decline. Watch as businesses adopt BCH.
One public figure who has thrown his weight behind BCH is Pirate Party founder and bitcoin maverick Rick Falkvinge, who declared: "With recent developments, I'm putting all available dev resources to retool my software for #Bitcoin Cash. I suspect I'm far from alone." He later added: "I'm moving my development effort to Bitcoin Cash, as Bitcoin Legacy now has hit a brick wall and needs to be dropped like a bad habit. I have no real reason to move the coins."

One Coin to Rule Them All
Bitcoin Cash Surges as Businesses Abandon Legacy BTCThe Bitcoin Cash market has surged over the last 24 hours, with volume exceeding $2.5 billion, 57% of which was trading against the Korean won. Much of the fevered interest in BCH will simply have been market sentiment, fueled by the growing consensus that the legacy bitcoin chain is ill-equipped to handle growing volume. It would be speculative at this stage to suggest that BCH is gearing up for its own version of The Flippening, when Ethereum believers thought their coin might actually overtake bitcoin to become The One True Coin.

Make no mistake though, if BCH's most ardent supporters have their way, not only will bitcoin cash steal bitcoin's market cap eventually but it will also steal its name. In the wake of the Segwit2x furore, there were hopes that the in-fighting which had driven a wedge into the bitcoin community would cease and work could resume on infrastructure improvements. Instead, the BTC/BCH debate has been ramped up, with supporters of both chains adamant that theirs is the best bitcoin.

Friday, November 10, 2017

What is Flixxo ?

 




Flixxo is a decentralized video distribution network. All the videos you are watching are stored safely. Flixxo is free from structural costs, and producers can share the earnings from their content with the network that supports them. Flixxo is also based on blockchain technology that is the first attached to a social video platform.

What makes Flixxo alluring to purchasers?

Because of the super bills of capability and information transmission, simply a few actual levels are sharing this very productive trade. In spite of everything, this will likely trade quickly on account of the development and utilization of Flixxo. The video stream level that is determined by the dedication of the vast majority of its purchasers. Benefit from your maximum beloved roughly recordings, at the larger a part of your units To find the crisp financial system in view of staff conveyed video - Flixxo. Flixx can be used to observe the substance that you just really like, do buying groceries on the internet and even trade over it to cryptographic cash.

Features of flixxo

- Easy to make use of via non cryptographic cash purchasers
- Fast and easy to discover via or paintings
- Ready to paintings from any roughly information superhighway related system, comprehensively
- Every other and imaginative gaming background, on account of its prizes and the social collaborations it makes
- Alluring to content material makers on account of its motivating power framework

Query

With out query, it's extra interesting and all of the extra easy to simply take a gander at some account than learn a web page or two. It does not depend on a solitary server alternatively lets in these kind of disseminated units crosswise over to community to percentage the recordings it stated.

Flixxo Team



Remunerating the purchasers

For serving to the machine paintings, all purchasers are remunerated with Flixxo credit referred to as Flixx. Thusly, you permit other folks from the level to come back and get bits of that video from you - at that time, they are able to likewise growth towards changing into traders. How can it serve as? You'll mortgage your system stockpiling prohibit, to video makers over the Flixxo.

How to use

- Level 1 - watch a video that you just really like and want to put one thing apart for another time, too.
- Level 2 - spare it into your gadgets.
- Level 3 - change into right into a Flixxo video wholesaler. The framework is on this approach like Bittorrent (the shared conference you maximum unquestionably applied as of just lately).


Alongside those strains, kind of, that is the way in which Flixxo works. At this time, gauges reveal that over 70% of the information superhighway servers are applied for video placing away. The global marketplace of web-based social networking levels reveal that an enormous choice of buck are coordinated towards manufacturing of video content material. Within the match that you just ask the overall inhabitants round you what would possibly they slightly do - watch a brief video introducing one thing or learn a piece of writing that portrays exactly the similar - the majority of them would pick out the foremost selection. This is why recordings are probably the most distinguished and absolutely the most efficient types of on-line substance. As well as, those types of fabrics are simple to percentage. That is completed throughout the Bitcoin innovation that makes an unusual automatic token - utterly safe and transferable. Moreover, it may be gotten from other folks from the level.

It may be earned via demonstrating recordings or looking at supported substance.

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Earn money with BitClave Search

 
bitclave

With Bitclave instead of ad companies, you will get compensated for the money you get, witch will be hundreds of dollars each offer. Anything you search for or will click on will only be your own business. If any company or someone wants your business they will have to pay for your data. The Bitclave team existis of 20 engineers and the advisory board of world-class talents. 

Henceforth there's a variety in shopper safety with Bitclave . D. BitClave assembles every other same old for the relationship among clients and organizations in mild of savvy contracts. Prevailing gamers or center other people round right here pay an excellent deal, and moreover do not make sure that whether or not the provides will urged the right kind crowd. The marketing industry prices 550 billion greenbacks. Relating to this, the industry should spend a substantial measure of money on selling, and eventually the burden is based upon the client, since he must pay extra. Acts each disconnected and on-line aren't targeted on the coveted space for which the object or administrations are deliberate, and due to this fact they fall into a fraction that's not all in favour of those commercials or developments. Every so often ads finally end up in someone else's unsolicited mail field. It alters the way in which people make the most of the internet. This permits organizations to lift to watchers who're most likely going to peer promotions and interface with products or administrations. But, this development will get a spot amongst a lot of other developments so it helps to keep the promotion area occupied. Part of the motion is created by means of bots, alongside those traces vanquishing selling targets. It likewise allows the watcher to achieve money to peer the commercial. But even so, the group has no assurance that the job they get at the grounds that this promotion is qualified. 

BitClave allows consumers to regulate their very own explicit knowledge They are able to carry out exam and selling by means of sellers thru savvy contracts. This is equal to disconnected publicizing. Promotions are normally despatched to people whose attention is focused round various things or the people who need not hassle with an merchandise or management. 

bitclave

The problems appeared by means of the client and maker within the publicizing industry. This results in a low exchange fee. Middlman, for example, Google Fb, and so on. Incessantly, disconnected publicizing advances content material with missal or hit missal mindset. It is a pity, tragic and aggravating factor when gamers or huge mediators in publicizing industry undertakings price an excellent deal and moreover does now not make sure that whether or not the development will urged the right kind team of onlookers. Likewise, Corporations like Google and Fb monitor every motion of the client, this is, checking the classification of purchasers, and purchasers do not pay for a similar Right.

What is Bitclave?

BITCLAVE is the place savvy contracts supplant the mediator in selling. Organizations like Google and Fb pitch shopper knowledge to brokers. Internet based totally publicizing has pushed a lot of organizations to offer quite a lot of money to delegates all in combination for his or her developments to reach the bulk. Many selling messages are despatched to purchasers with out that specialize in or with small that specialize in. This is not a subject with Bitclave at the grounds that outlets lift their pieces to consumers straightforwardly. 





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Saturday, November 4, 2017

CC Founder Bobby Lee: “The Segwit2x Feature Is an Upgrade”

 


This week Bobby Lee, the chief executive officer of the Chinese cryptocurrency exchange BTCC, held an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) with bitcoin traders on the Reddit forum /r/bitcoinmarkets. During the AMA the conversation participants focused in on the Segwit2x hard fork set to activate on or around November 16.

BTCC Will Follow the Most Accumulated Hashing Power Which Produces the Longest Valid Blockchain
BTCC Founder Bobby Lee: "Segwit2x Feature Is an Upgrade"According to Bobby Lee's most recent AMA, the Chinese exchange founder says that the pending Segwit2x fork is an "upgrade" and the Bitcoin network's consensus rules will change this time around. Lee details that if more than one chain survives, and the minority chain has demand, BTCC will support the forked protocol just as it has done with altcoins earlier this year. Recently BTCC just started altcoin mining and started with litecoin, and the pool will soon mine bitcoin cash as well, Lee reveals.

"In the future, if the Bitcoin Core Legacy (BCL) chain survives, we will consider providing BTCC Pool support for that based on market demand," explains Lee during his AMA. "This time, in mid-November, bitcoin is expected to upgrade its consensus rules, just as it has done so many times over the past nine years."

The upcoming Segwit2x feature is an upgrade to Bitcoin, and yes, there is a change in consensus rules this time. Per bitcoin rules, bitcoin will continue to be the chain that has the most accumulated hashing power and produces the longest valid blockchain.
Segwit2x Will be a Good Test

Lee and BTCC's perspective of the situation share the same view as Coinbase, Bitpay, Xapo and other businesses by choosing to follow the most accumulated hashrate. Lee says the reason he likes bitcoin so much is because there is a "balance of power — no one group has absolute power." Further, Lee digresses that there is no mathematical certainty or exact measurement of how much power each group has, and he believes this fork will be a good test.

"The upcoming bitcoin upgrade (NYA, Segwit2x) is a good test to see if the bitcoin community can move forward when only a subset of all the groups decide to move on to an upgrade of bitcoin," the BTCC founder details. "It's unfortunate that this upgrade is not fully supported by all groups."

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Segwit2x Upgrade is “Full Steam Ahead”

 


The Segwit2x working group has been quiet lately, but now it seems the development wheels are turning once again. On Wednesday, October 25 the lead developer of the Segwit2x (BTC1) working group, Jeff Garzik, addressed the public with a status update. According to Garzik, everything is "still full steam ahead for Segwit2x upgrade" scheduled for mid-November.

Segwit2x Upgrade is "Full Steam Ahead"
Segwit2x Developer Says November Hard Fork is Full Steam AheadThe maintainer of the Segwit2x code, Jeff Garzik has revealed an October "status update" to the development community through the Linux mailing list. The last time Garzik greeted the public was back in August when the Segregated Witness (Segwit) protocol was applied to the Bitcoin network. Like the previous time, Garzik's email seems upbeat and cuts to the formalities right away with the developer stating:  

To state the obvious, everything is still full steam ahead for the Segwit2x upgrade in mid-November.
Garzik notes that back in August the project was in a "code freeze" and emphasizes the BTC1 repository is currently still enforcing the freeze. A code freeze basically means that changes made to the source code have a stricter degree of rule sets. As Garzik states "only changes or fixes thought to be important pre-fork will be included."

Segwit2x Developer Says November Hard Fork is Full Steam Ahead
Garzik's October status update riled up some members of the bitcoin community over his claims regarding "Core bugs."
Segwit2x Will Stay on Bitcoin Core Version 14 Through the November Fork Due to Version 15 Bugs
The developer also explains the BTC1 source code is a fork of the Core software, and the team tracks that repository's updates. Additionally, Garzik gives a link to the production release branch and explains that specific Segwit2x code is based on Core version 0.14.x, and the developer release is associated with version 0.15.x.

"I've been paying close attention to the Bitcoin Core 0.15.x rollout," explains Garzik. Based on instability and bugs that upstream Bitcoin Core project is seeing – ie. Core's bugs, not ours – Segwit2x will stay on Bitcoin Core 0.14.x. through the November fork."  

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Meet Atlant the world's Real estate blockchain platform

 



Atlant is the world's real estate blockchain platform. Buyers of the coin and sellers of the coin are able to trade without causing changes in the asset price. You have with atlant low fees atlant eliminated overhead. Atlant has nearly 5 million dollars funds.

Atlant is the world's real estate blockchain platform. Buyers of the coin and sellers of the coin are able to trade without causing changes in the asset price. You have with atlant low fees atlant eliminated overhead. Atlant has nearly 5 million dollars funds.

Atlant

It powers both tokenization and contracting parts of the ATLANT Platform.

The stage executes its own convention, in charge of information circulation and reflecting, noteworthy forming of archives, disseminated information stockpiling, discretion and notoriety in the decentralized system. The span of this expense is controlled by voting of the ATL token holders.

Votes to choose different moves made concerning the property: stage posting choice, posting charge endorsement, law office decision, administration organization decision (property tokenization), property for lease endorsement, rental expense endorsement.

Capacity to work, and gain additional wage, inside the structure of ATLANT as a referee for strife determination in P2P rentals, directed by means of a judge rating framework. Members willing to help ATLANT advancement can send Ether to a predefined Ethereum keen contract address.

PRE-SALE

Begin date of the ATLANT PRE-SALE is August 1, 2017

Swapping scale for PRE-SALE: 1 ETH = 1010 ATL

Add up to ATL Tokens: 5,625,000

ICO

Begin date of the ATLANT ICO is September 7, 2017.

Swapping scale for ICO: 1 ETH = 505 ATL

Add up to ATL Tokens: 315,000,000. These commissions are dispersed to the ATL token holders. The ATLANT convention gives an extension, associating the ATLANT coordinate with the Ethereum-based keen contract foundation overseeing the ATLANT Platform. Add up to supply of ATL tokens will be constrained to 375,000,000 of which 315,000,000 will be issued amid the ICO period, and 5,625,000 allocated for the pre-deal, with the rest of to the group, BoD, counselors, and abundance.

ATL is a token issued on Ethereum blockchain. After a fruitful token deal, a concurred some portion of the property tokens is discharged out of ATLANT escrow to ATL token holders proportionately. Commissions from P2P rentals are forced on the lessor, as a little expense, once an exchange with the resident is finished.

The stage empowers property proprietors and designers to tokenize property by making altered shrewd contracts and play out a token conveyance to either offer property (mostly or totally) or draw in financing for its development. The rest is actualized as Ethereum savvy contracts and executed by EVM: DAO family, voting on recommendations, escrow, center and property tokens, rental assentions and helper contracts. Its plan takes after generally received token usage measures. ATLANT is building the cutting edge worldwide land stage in view of blockchain innovation, which gives two primary highlights to address known issues in the field of the present worldwide land:

Tokenized Ownership

Will disentangle each kind of operation with land, including property speculations and possession exchanges, either incomplete or finish. Because of this work reserves withheld from the escrow of the losing party are conveyed to the ATL coin holder who played out the intervention.

Effect on the stage and capacity to propose, vote on and help promote advancements to enhance the proficiency of land internationally, and in addition support ATLANT's worldwide reception and development.

Ethereum stage with its virtual machine (EVM) is at this point the most settled blockchain-based appropriated registering stage with keen contract usefulness. The measure of the stake is at first set at 7% of the hidden resource and, in this manner, dictated by voting of the ATL token holders.

The stage is fueled by its center token, condensed as "ATL".



ATL tokens

ATL tokens are basically enrollment endorsements in the ATLANT Platform, which give the accompanying rights and benefits to their proprietors:

Stake in all properties recorded through the ATLANT Platform amid their underlying property token offerings. Land tokens speaking to an offer in property possession will take into consideration a fluid, tradable land advertise with straightforwardness and value revelation.

Distributed Rentals

Will make it conceivable to altogether diminish expenses taken from the two gatherings (occupant and lessor) and limit plausibility of phony surveys and produced evaluations, which are the principle issues of existing unified rental administrations, for example, Airbnb and Booking.

ATLANT works as an exclusively decentralized framework, administered by the DAO family based on Ethereum. This enables token holders to effortlessly store and deal with their ATL tokens utilizing existing arrangements including the Ethereum Wallet.

ATLANT crowdfunding (Pre-Sale and ICO) and ATL token creation will happen utilizing Ethereum keen contracts.

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What is CobinHood?

 



Decentralized Exchanges are getting more and more important. After the many hacks Bitcoin and crypto exchanges have endured. A decentralized asset like Bitcoin need decentralized exchanges which explain the rapid grwoth of exchanges like the Waves Dex, Bitshares Dex, Etherdelta and now a new project called CobinHood. Because the team behind CobinHood is launching an Crowdfunding campaign. Tokens will finally end up it appears that evidently tradeable upon the dispatch of Cobinhood creative industry degree. what is extra, a few of trades would possibly no longer have hearty safety frameworks. The group retail outlets 98 % of the virtual forex retail outlets in a disconnected multistage vault, which calls for five out of eight geo-disseminated apparatus safety modules to open.

There may be nonetheless exists crucial to be deserving of regard for handles that stay on bedeviling cryptographic cash holders. a few of have problems that they want to set up are first of all, within the tournament that you're a dealer, there's a massive portion of trades price an exchanging bills. speculators and sellers want to prohibit themselves to what's marketed. ordinarily together with one of the most largest problems that crypto proprietors generally tend to stumble upon is the way in which that after they put assets into ICOs they want to sit down tight for lengthy to replace them in auxiliary markets. Fortify within the ICO can result in rewards of as much as 40 % in gentle of the date of becoming a member of, and likewise 50 % off edge exchanging advance intrigue. cobinhood is masking each one of the most administrations 0 expense industry degree supporting high-recurrence exchanging workouts.

Introduction

Blockchain innovation is extra grounded and the entire extra astonishing going to reform the internet and international really extensive organizations fund as it kind of feels to be. Whitepaper for extra learn: https://cobinhood.com/assets/whitepaper/whitepaper_en.pdf. we noticed and skim many noticed astounding construction on crypto assets extends on this international. this were happen with noticed in a few of outstanding trades in put it up for sale. COB tokens rely on Ethereum ERC20 token usual.

Level of cobinhood provides astounding management, 100 % ensure that for virtual forex retailer and multi-lingual consumer bolster. The group moreover declared the efficient end of its ICO presale, elevating every other five million. that means outcome performed within the lack of crypto assets price billions of greenbacks, a big portion of advantages are having a spot with the shoppers, so there's a restriction at the fiat financial bureaucracy which can be upheld on there trades.

Exchanging on virtual forex nonetheless a noteworthy check for a big portion of the Investors and fund monetary experts available in the market. there may be excessively successfully performed. cobinhood is recently targeted round its ICO, an mixture of one billion COB tokens can be issued, whilst as much as 500 million COB tokens can be out there via Ethereum cash starting on Sept. What is extra, all advantages put away in on-line wallets can be backed by way of exhaustive coverage. Cobinhood has secured a five million USD in seed financing, together with inclusion from Banyan Capital, Infinity Project Companions and other speculators. This may increasingly finish up influencing their liquidity.

Cobinhood, a leading edge virtual forex receive advantages degree propelled.

Cobinhood reason why to perform is to put across a conclusion to the problems that stay on combating construction on this space. The dispatch, motioned by way of the group's ICO (out there Sept. 13, 2017. this makes them powerless towards programmers and out of doors attacks. 13, 2017), will see cobinhood deliver the sector's preliminary zero-expense, high-recurrence virtual cash exchanging degree to sellers all over the world. be that as it will, there a few of quiet highlights of this degree are as in line with the next.

There may be extraordinarily nice figures and promising returns. this business construction in additional then thousand of billions out of couple of months. that means certainly with out query impact for your normal receive advantages ar the end of the day. in crypto international the larger a part of the trades do not be offering steady exchanging for purchasers, that means when consumers orders ans lead to deferrals to complete organize in few days so buyer ought to wish to sit down tight for till the purpose when end orders. This is not all, the degree will likewise be in command of endorsing all ICOs that recorded on its industry will bolster close to twenty virtual kinds of cash on its degree.



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Friday, October 20, 2017

Bitcoin Cash Developers Propose New Address Format

 



This week the lead Bitcoin ABC developer, Amaury Séchet, proposed to add a Bech32 address format to the Bitcoin Cash (BCC) network. Currently, the BCC community has been discussing modifying the bitcoin cash address format, alongside preparing to fix the protocol's Emergency Difficulty Adjustment (EDA).

The Bitcoin Cash Community and Developers Propose Changing the Protocol's Address Format
Bitcoin Cash Developers Propose a New Address FormatOn October 14, Amaury Séchet proposed to implement a new address format to the bitcoin cash network. The subject of changing the BCC address format has been debated for a few months now, but even more so after Bitpay released a new address format for the company's BCC integration in its Copay wallet. The discussion initially started on the Bitcoin ABC Github repository back in July. A few weeks ago Bitpay stated it had created "new conventions to ensure users don't accidentally send BTC to a BCC wallet or vice versa." However, Bitpay's new address format wasn't received well by the BCC community and developers.

Electron Cash Wallet Developer Weighs In
Bitcoin Cash Developers Propose a New Address FormatFor instance, the Electron Cash wallet developer, Jonald Fyookball, detailed on the Yours network, that "Bitpay's new bitcoin cash address format breaks wallet compatibility and requires community discussion." Fyookball explains he's a "fan of Bitpay," but he believes releasing a new format without community discussion creates issues. The "main problem" Fyookball details, is that unless every single BCC user within the entire community upgrades to this new software there will be address "incompatibility between the new (Bitpay format) and the existing format for addresses."   

"Newer wallets theoretically should still be able to support sending to old addresses unless those wallets intentionally stop supporting legacy addresses," Fyookball explains. "But actually, it appears that Bitpay has done just that on their own platform."

This may be a matter of design choice if the idea is to prevent a user from sending to a BTC address — Yet, since many users still use old addresses, it breaks backwards compatibility.
Amaury Séchet Favors the Bech 32 Address Format
Bitcoin Cash Developers Propose a New Address FormatThe community believes it is essential for bitcoin cash addresses to be distinguished from bitcoin addresses, but think Bitpay's method may not be the best answer. Bitcoin ABC's Amaury Séchet explains on the team's developer mailing list that maybe BCC programmers "have been moving too slowly and that is why Bitpay has gone ahead." But Séchet also says he thinks they should have discussed the move as address upgrades can be "disruptive." Séchet also revealed at the time he is in favor of Bech 32 address styles, a proposal first introduced by bitcoin developer Pieter Wuille.         

"At this point, I am in favor of the Bech 32 style addresses as they have a number of advantages — The most notable one, is that the format can be extended to support new features in the future," Séchet's developer mailing list post details. "The current address format or the variation proposed by Bitpay doesn't, which means we'll likely have to change it again in the future."

As a result, I think we should adopt an extensible address format rather than doing a quick fix that makes us feel better now but fails to anticipate needs down the road — We are in this for the long run.
Lots of Bitcoin Cash Proposals and Ideas Being Tossed Around
The Github proposal pushed forward by Séchet seems to be favored by other developers who assist with the BCC protocol. One reviewer writes, "very elegant proposal, I like it," and the pull request was also sent to the Bitpay/Copay code repository. The developer who recommends the address format changes to Bitpay asks, "Would you remove your new address format starting with C and add the Bech32 format (described here: Bitcoin-UAHF/spec#21) if some wallets start using it? It is more useful."  

Bitcoin Cash development and infrastructure seems to be moving along with the recent EDA proposals and the latest address format idea. Further, the community has been greeted by another plan to create color coins on the BCC network. Bitcoin Unlimited developer, Andrew Stone recently proposed bitcoin cash scripting applications on October 16, in order to issue representative tokens on the network. 

Sunday, October 15, 2017

The History and Evolution of Proof of Stake

 


Proof of Stake (PoS) was first introduced in a paper by Sunny King and Scott Nadal in 2012 and intended to solve the problem of Bitcoin mining's high energy consumption. At that time, it cost an average of $150,000 a day to maintain the Bitcoin network. Today, this figure is at a staggering $6.7 million (if we assume a $0.12/watt cost and multiply that with the estimated 56,209,833 KWh of electricity that the Bitcoin network consumed on Oct. 13, 2017).

Rather than relying on the energy-dependent work of miners to add blocks, Sunny and Scott suggested an alternative method called "staking" where a deterministic algorithm would choose nodes based on the number of coins an individual had. In other words, stakers would have more chances of being selected to add a block to the chain and reap the reward if they "staked" more coins in their wallet.  They hoped this would avoid the ever increasing energy costs and hashrate difficulty of mining. However, their new consensus mechanism was not without its own issues.  

Four Issues With PoS
There are four main challenges in designing a Proof of Stake system:

Distribution. Since block rewards go to stakers, how do you distribute coins initially?
Monopolization. Those with a significant amount of coins reap a majority of all future coins.
51% attack. Just like how Proof of Work (PoW) has to be wary of a 51% attack from a miner, so too does PoS have to be wary of a staker who has a 51% stake weight.
Nothing at Stake (NoS). PoS adds a block when a node meets a set of conditions which includes stake weight. However, the coin forks when two nodes meet these conditions at the same time. The fork is then resolved by other nodes signing one of the two transactions. The hypothetical problem of NoS arises when 99% of all nodes sign both chains because there is no cost (nothing at stake) to verify these transactions. Therefore a 1% staker could potentially "double spend" by paying with coins on one chain but then verifying the other.
In light of this, the evolution of PoS can be understood by each coin attempting to solve these issues in their own way.  We will now look at Peercoin.

Peercoin PPC
Sunny King created Peercoin (PPC) in 2013 to become the first cryptocurrency to implement Proof of Stake while still keeping Proof of Work (PoW). It addressed the 4 issues of PoS in the following ways:

Distribution. Peercoin uses a PoW-based decreasing distribution. In the beginning, PoW was heavily emphasized for PPC's initial distribution phase but has since then been decreasing.  
Monopolization. Coin age was implemented to prevent coin-rich stakers from dominating the rewards.
51% attacks. PPC's chain is completely secured by PoS even though it is a hybrid. Attacks are highly unlikely because it is incredibly expensive to perform an attack. The attacker must effectively purchase or bribe 51% of the staked coins in order to perform this action. Any attack would significantly devalue the coin and cost the attackers a great deal.
Nothing at Stake. PPC developers don't believe this would happen. However, Sunny implemented optional "checkpoints" at first in case there was a successful attack.  Now that the PPC's network has matured, checkpoints are in the process of being phased out.

Blackcoin BLK
This next phase of PoS history is called considered a pure proof of stake protocol without any mining and was first implemented by NXT on November 24, 2013. However, let's consider another coin, Blackcoin, that was also a pure proof of stake that was released shortly thereafter as it has a simpler protocol and had a fairer initial distribution phase.

Blackcoin was created by Pavel Vasin (a.k.a. Rat4) and was released in February 2014.  When Rat4 decided to create BLK, he set out to remove coin age and PoW.  He believed coin age would increase the chance of a 51% stake attack as older aged coins would need less than 51% of staking coins to cause a fork. He also believed that coin age disincentivized users from staking consistently. Rather, stakers were incentivized to remain offline for 90 days to maximize their chances of getting a stake thereby making the network less secure. Rat4's implementation of PoS v.2 protocol addresses the four issues of PoS in the following ways:

Distribution. BLK went through a temporary Proof of Work phase with no pre-mine to ensure fair distribution.
Monopolization. This was addressed via a fair distribution period.
51% attacks. It is incredibly expensive to buy enough coins in order to perform this attack.  Also, the coin would lose significant value.
Nothing at Stake. BLK dev's also believed this was not a threat. However, BLK included checkpoints to protect against hard forks.  Checkpoints will be removed in PoS 3.

Ether ETH
Since Blackcoin, there have been several iterations of the PoS protocol. For example, Bitshares was the first to implement Delegated Proof of Stake.  But the newest iteration of PoS is Ethereum's (ETH) attempt at PoS.  The motivation for ETH to switch is primarily a desire to move towards a more eco-friendly and decentralized system.  If the Ethereum Virtual Machine is truly to be adopted world-wide, Bitcoin's current $6.7 million daily electricity cost would quickly be surpassed.

Ethereum's PoS system will implement a Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)-style PoS. Validators will be randomly assigned block rewards, however consensus is formed through a multi-round process where every validator votes for a chain. Ethereum is NOT utilizing Proof of Stake at the moment and there have been some doubts as to whether or not it will actually be implemented. With that being said, here's how Ethereum hopes to solve the four ssues involved with PoS:

Distribution. ETH has already been distributed with approximately 70% sold in it's ICO in 2014 representing 70% of total of Ether in circulation. Eleven million was given to the Ethereum Foundation and continues its distribution via PoW.
Monopolization. ETH has already been distributed.  Another way ETH hopes to solve this issue is by locking coins in a smart contract in order to stake. Therefore, staking comes at the cost of liquidity.
51% attacks. As mentioned above, it is incredibly costly to buy or bribe nodes to participate in a 51% attack. Should an attack happen, Michael Gubik proposes utilizing social/business/exchange forums to select one of the forked chains in his Proof of Stake FAQ on Ethereum's github.
Nothing at Stake. Validators will be disincentivized from signing orphaned blockchains as they will be punished.

Conclusion
There have been many fully functional and secure iterations of PoS over the history of cryptocurrency from the Hybrid PoS-PoW to pure PoS to Delegated PoS.  The BFT-style PoS is the newest attempt to address the four main issues surrounding the protocol initially proposed by Sunny and Mark. Each coin reflects a different approach and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. However, the move to PoS reflects a larger philosophical move in the world of cryptocurrency towards a more eco-friendly and decentralized system.

PNC Bank Threatens to Close Customer’s Account for Buying Bitcoin

 

PNC Bank Threatens to Close Customer's Account for Buying Bitcoin
The PNC bank recently threatened one of their customers for purchasing bitcoin. The bank wanted to shut down the customer's account. This has been a story floating around the internet the last few days. The victim was Elitoohey. He elaborated on the situation in a Reddit post, saying the bank started by asking him questions about recent bitcoin purchases. 

"For What Purpose are You Buying Bitcoin?"
The banker wanted to know why he was purchasing bitcoin. The bank PNC Bank Threatens to Close Customer's Account for Buying Bitcoinseemed to be concerned about him buying and owning the digital currency. They goaded him about his purchase and pried into his business.

Toohey said, "He asked me to confirm a couple transactions then asked, 'For what purpose are you buying Bitcoin?' (he saw Coinbase and Xapo transactions). I told him I wouldn't answer, he then asked 'What are you going to do with the Bitcoin?' I again told him I wouldn't answer."

The conversation escalated to the level of threats.

"Exit the Relationship"
The banker went on to tell Toohey that their security team would "exit the relationship" with him if he did not provide them with information. Under their threats and pressure, Toohey relented. He provided them with information, because he appears to not want to close his account and change banks.

I relented and told him "for investment purposes" hoping to avoid needing to switch banks. He said he thinks that might satisfy them but that PNC Bank wants nothing to do with Bitcoin.
The Story Emerges as Influential Bankers Voice Concerns
This story crops up as more news emerges of bankers and well known investorsPNC Bank Threatens to Close Customer's Account for Buying Bitcoin voice concerns about bitcoin and cryptocurrency. They are usually calling it a fraud as with the case of Jamie Dimon, or talking about how it is a bubble ready to pop in the case of Ray Dalio.

However, since some people in the cryptocurrency ecosystem believe bitcoin will undermine banks, it seems logical that bankers are pushing back against the technology.

Saturday, October 7, 2017

China Will Likely Resume Cryptocurrency Trading by Licensing Bitcoin Exchanges

 



The Chinese government will likely resume cryptocurrency trading in the upcoming months with necessary Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) systems in place.

Earlier this week, Xinhua, the state-owned news publication of China, revealed that the Chinese government is concerned with criminal activities surrounding cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. It emphasized that cryptocurrencies have become the "top choice" for underground economies and revealed that the government will take appropriate measures to regulate the market by implementing a licensing program and strict AML systems.

Why the Ban on Chinese Exchanges is Not Beneficial for the Government
Last month, the Chinese government, the People's Bank of China (PBoC), and local financial regulators imposed a nationwide ban on cryptocurrency exchanges. Consequently, the price of bitcoin fell to $3,000 and the cryptocurrency market endured a major correction.

Since then, the global cryptocurrency exchange market has restructured as the majority of trading volumes from China moved to neighboring markets such as Japan and South Korea. More to that, the Japanese government officially authorized 11 cryptocurrency exchanges in the same month, providing an efficient and well-regulated ecosystem for Chinese traders. As a result, the bitcoin price has recovered and has remained above the $4,000 margin.

But, the Chinese government's ban on cryptocurrency exchanges also led to the increasing trading volumes of over-the-counter (OTC) markets and peer-to-peer trading platforms such as LocalBitcoins. For the Chinese government, such trend is a major concern in terms of KYC and AML policies because traders are now able to exchange cryptocurrencies and trade the Chinese yuan without the control and the involvement of Chinese authorities.

Previously, when regulated Chinese cryptocurrency trading platforms such as BTCC, OKCoin, and Huobi were around, the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency trades were overseen by the PBoC through KYC and AML systems adopted by businesses within the Chinese cryptocurrency exchange market. Today, it is not possible for the Chinese government to regulate cryptocurrency trades because they are being processed and settled in markets that are outside the reach of the local authorities.

Licensing Program Similar to That of Japan Likely
Xinhua noted that the government is considering the possibility of licensing and record-keeping cryptocurrency trades, as local sources including CnLedger have shared. CnLedger, a trusted source of cryptocurrency news in China, stated:

"Xinhua News, official press agency of CN: Virtual currencies have become the top choices of underground economies. We shall adopt '0-tolerance policies' towards crimes hidden underneath and take measures such as record-keeping, licensing, AML processes, real-name, limiting large transactions."

In order for the government to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on cryptocurrency-based criminal activities, it needs to have infrastructures in place that can allow the government to oversee payments and disclose the identities of cryptocurrency users. Without KYC and AML systems, as seen in trading platforms like LocalBitcoins and other OTC markets, it is virtually impossible to execute a zero-tolerance policy on cryptocurrency crimes.

As Xinhua suggested, it is definitely possible that the cryptocurrency exchange ban in China is only temporary until the Chinese government releases a stricter record-keeping, licensing, and AML policies for trading platforms.

Also, as experts and executives at overseas exchange markets such as Hong Kong revealed, the ban on cryptocurrency exchanges have not stopped Chinese investors from buying and investing in cryptocurrencies.

"The ban did not stop them [Chinese investors] from buying cryptocurrencies. In the last few weeks, we have seen a lot of mainland customers opening up accounts at TideBit. They still want to play the game. I see a growing need in that they will come to Hong Kong or Singapore to buy cryptocurrency," said Terence Tsang, chief operating officer at TideiSun, the parent company of TideBit.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Investors Alert: Project Populous - A project to enrich Stephen Williams/ Steve Nico Williams by fraud

 




Steven Williams/ Populous | Fraud ending up a as SCAM, or was it a SCAM all the time?


The Populous Project is a trade finance and invoice platform built on the most recent block chain technology. The platform is based on the ethereal backbone and features units known as Pokens. Stephen Williams (CEO), John Morton (big data scientist) and Zvezdomir Zlatinov (CTO) lead the project. The three have project knowledge they had gained from the year they were in cryptocurrency industry. Populous uses smart contracts, Score formula, XBRL and stable tokens thus creating a unique trading platform for sellers and investors all over the globe. The platform is already 90% developed with clients already lined up. Financial projection depicts that Populous is set to be a bubble in the invoice trading industry. 
 

Who is Stephen Williams/ Steve Nico Williams?

According to the LinkedIn profile, Stephen Williams (CEO) has a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the London Metropolitan University. In addition, he is the publisher of Tramp magazine and the founder of Olympus research. Stephen Williams has a background in upper management in SAS and veteran smart contract developers and blocks chain analysts back up Experian. Stephen Williams Block chain start-up promises to lower barriers of entry potential investors thus allowing more accessibility to billings market. Moreover, he promised to eliminate many human factors that may be inherent to the industry. The Populous platform founders intend to reduce costs per transactions hence increasing liquidity available to institutions and individuals. 

Stephen Williams collecting funds through the Populous ICO 

The ICO was to start 16th July 2017 and will run for one month 16th August 2017. Investors are encouraged to invest in the project and by that, they support start-up founders. 53,252,246 units will be available for subscription. Project Populous have is putting 36,000,000 for sale. Token subscriptions are acquired through blogs, signature campaigns, and translations and in social media. Moreover, investors are encouraged to engage in bitcointalk on the project Populous. 

Stephen Williams first fraud: Changing the allocation of funds for self benefit



Stephen Williams’s Populous presale allowed investors to contribute early before the actual opening date for the PPT Sale. The Populous team advised investors to wire funds from their crypto currency exchange account. The transfer required investors to have an operational Ethereum account. If the Populous was legit, Stephen Williams could have advised clients to use trading account instead of Ethereum wallet. Investors who did not have a local ethereum wallet software such as Parity or Mist were advised to use the free web wallet. Earlier reports had suggested that web wallet was susceptible to hackers who had earlier siphoned bit coins worth millions of dollars. 

Stephen Williams blatant lying and ignoring users concerns

Stephen Williams advocates for investors to use the web wallet so that he can create an easier way to scam investors their funds. One week after the ICO an investor complained of missing PPT tokens. Stephen accused the investor of buying PPT token from the un-accredited seller who according to him (Stephen) was a part of the ICO. The Populous web platform is not safe, some addresses posted in the forum are not legit. Stephen Williams is doing little about them, it’s likely he is part of the scam since the slackbots are used to swindle investors of their fund.

Stephen Williams - Where did those 4 Millions tokens come from?

Unfortunately this not all. During the last couple of weeks where the ICO was finished, more and more shady actions has come to light. And probably will keep on coming. Naive as Stephen Williams is he will probably think he can get away with this. New tokens coming up, misuse of ICO funds etc. etc. Let's make sure he will not have time to do it. It's time for action.

Time for Action!

If you are an investor and are afraid that he will get away with this. Then we have good news. Report Steve Nico Williams to the authorities in the United Kingdom. Benefit fraud is a crime which is the UK police take very seriously and so are the penalties for this crime.
http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud
https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud