Friday, January 19, 2018

SCCEX Will Support BCH Because It Is “Satoshi’s True Bitcoin”
Saturday, January 13, 2018

Overstock Glitch Gave Customers ‘Discounts’ With Bitcoin Cash
Friday, January 12, 2018

The intelligent investors guide to Particl (PART): Part 5 - How will Particl if successfully adopted increase the value of *all* cryptocurrencie
By: Joske

Notorious Domain XBT.com Goes up for Sale at 200 BTC
Saturday, January 6, 2018

Dubai to Become a Blockchain City
Saturday, December 30, 2017

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Privacy Coins

Here Are the Crypto Exchanges With the Lowest Fees
Saturday, December 16, 2017

11 The intelligent investors guide to Particl (PART): Part 4 - Is there a huge unmet demand for 100% private 2-party transactions? (self.Particl)
Is there a huge unmet demand for 100% private 2-party transactions?
...
Yes.
...
Privacy centric markets e.g. Particl (PART) are useful for:
Privacy enthusiasts.
People who wish to live independent of fiat.
People who live in localities where crypto is not taxed or recognized as a legal unit of exchange (potentially legally bypassing local tax laws).
Grey market purchases (nootropics, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, alcohol, luxury goods, knockoff's (including unbranded device clones or items which are essentially legal but copyright may be an issue).
Embarrassing legal goods purchases or purchases you do not want appearing on a credit card statement (sex toys is an obvious one; I'm sure there are more)
People in countries with unstable economies (Venezuela, Zimbabwe) where local currency hyperinflation means purchasing various goods in native currency is pointless/expensive/cumbersome but using alternative non-private currencies to transact (e.g. Bitcoin) may result in prosecution.
Legal transaction of goods internationally but the need to keep location of buyer/sender publicly hidden due to local/regional restrictions or requirements for other bureaucracy if purchased in fiat
Extremely sensitive research and development or manufacturing projects especially product manufacture where for whatever reason the design, parts and manufacturing process must be completely unknown or obscurable.
Purist use as a store of value, anonymous secure, large OTC cryptocurrency transactions and wholeseller/sensitive R&D or confidential supply chain transactions is a massive legal use case area.
Whole seller/boutique manufacturing and R&D is probably the biggest legal use case especially where patent's or highly sensitive data is concerned and for whole sellers and large scale manufacturers who wish to keep their trade secrets intact.
Providing a safe, secure competitive edge when negociating with multiple contractors. MAD Escrow service serves as a nice deposit feature for lock on of contracts for large scale distributors where trust or quality concerns may be an issue.
Sometimes the convenience associated with trading on a fully anonymous platform (where the client node locations are anon and the buyer/seller/amount are publicly anon) in terms of keeping paperwork and records but still trading goods for a fungible currency) outweighs the risks. Anyone who has ever had to do company accounts will understand what a pain in the ass these are to keep and produce.
Any transaction where only the buyer and seller can know about the nature of the transaction. This relates back to R&D, sensitive information exchange but is facilitated by PARTICL having a trustless, automated non-human escrow (the MAD mutually assured destruction escrow) to ensure both buyer and seller are complicit in ensuring delivery of payment and delivery of goods in acceptable condition.
...
I've discussed this with a friend who tinkers in making all kinds of legal useful gadgets (we're talking voice activated Iron Man suits with built in LCD screens, Thor Hammers and tonnes of custom cosplay stuff in amazing quality); he'd be reluctant to sell these on eBay due to litigation risks but he'd make a killing selling these anonymously online; these are definitely things people want and would enjoy. There's a tonne of stuff on alibaba which would be ideal to sell on the Particl network; true anonymity creates an incentive to justify many of the negatives I've outlined.
The stuff he's building would actually be legal to sell in many jurisdictions where copyright laws are more relaxed but centralised services would never tolerate due to their need to appease international corporate interests regardless of laws. Decentralized private commerce would allow him to serve those jurisdictions with confidence.
...
I've also had the pleasure of discussing distributed ledger technologies with an analyst at BNY Mellon who highlighted his opinion that the two big things large investment banks look for in blockchain technology are scalability and privacy. These are banks whose transaction volumes can be in the billions of USD per trade. Discretion for their clients and representatives is paramount and freely publicly viewable records of transactions on a block chain represent a potential disadvantage to adoption. Privacy is paramount and solutions which preserve it protect security.
It is unfortunate that in recent times a need for privacy has been confused or maligned in popular culture with the desire to commit illegal activity. In day to day practice, the need for privacy of data transmission and transaction settlement manifests in the designs of all major institutions be it medical records in healthcare, government and corporate memos and communications or even transmission of social media and personal communications. Privacy is fundamentally associated with security and by extension safety.
...
With that in mind, if you started this questioning the value and scope for privacy markets, I hope it is more apparent that the market and volume for true privacy centric, trustless listings, transactions, communications, escrow and marketplace settlement is probably much larger than you realized.
By: Joske

Bitcoin’s Market Cap Surpasses the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights Reserves

NEO Receives Its First ICO Template
Saturday, December 9, 2017

The intelligent investors guide to Particl (PART): Part 3 - How will Particl succeed in gaining price appreciation, adoption and network effect where centralised anonymous marketplaces fail?
How will Particl succeed in gaining price appreciation, adoption and network effect where centralised anonymous marketplaces fail?
It's real simple. Particl is not a centralised marketplace so you would need to take the majority of the nodes down to compromise the network.
Contrast this with tradtional centralised marketplaces where taking down a handful of servers can shut down the entire service leading to loss of any funds held there.
The Particl nodes can be run on the tor network for added security thus the network is inherently more resistant to tradtional hacks, takedowns and DDOS attacks.
Integration of the currency into the platform means that the value of the PART token will increase rapidly as use of the marketplace increases.
This is because although Particl can accept multiple cryptocurrencies, these will all be converted in the Particl client into PART token via integration of shapeshift exchange and other decentralized exchanges into the Particl client before being used to transact on the Particl network.
Thus there is a constant buy pressure on the PART token to raise its daily trading volume, attract speculators who will then promote the platform further (after learning about it) and thus speading the network effect and awareness about the marketplace.
Integration of the currency into the platform also makes it easier to use as it reduces the number of additional trusted third party services required to zero, thus the service is more accessible, secure, safer and convenient.
XMR and DNM's are currently the way with regards to anonymous, private commerce but the Particl network provides all their services integrated and avoids all their inherent problems.
A design which encourages convenience (integration of the currency exchange/converter, marketplace listings, escrow service, currency, communications, security features and any additional services required under one client operating on a separate chain).
Compare with centralized marketplace's which have a number of distinct disadvantages:
Have far higher fees
Are governed by centralized authorities which can delist or prevent you from listing products for any reason whatsoever without any recourse; this also prevents buyers from being able to purchase things they want
Contain your sensitive data (credit card information, purchase/sell history, personal information) on centralized servers which means your information can be sold to third-parties, governments or leaked during hacks (Equifax anyone?)
Have zero network effects -- unless you own stock in Amazon.com you couldn't give two shits about how it operates
In contrast decentralized privacy centric MP's do not require personal information, can benefit from leveraging the network effects of speculation (Bitcoin circa 2013 is a perfect example), can have low or zero transaction fee's and protect sellers from premature, unfair or even illegal delisting i.e. protect buyers and sellers from censorship where none is required or where censorship is questionable.
Furthermore the tax implications of cryptocurrency have yet to be determined. PART wouldn't qualify as just a currency as it has features that make it more in keeping with a bond and a share simultaneously (as the token confers governance rights, generates passive income if staked and is used to secure the network + act as bond in it's escrow service). Tax laws specific to an asset class like PART have yet to be clearly defined. I think a large amount of legal white market commerce could run through Particl simply because it potentially represents a more legally tax efficient solution.
Following on from this I think a large amount of wealth that has moved into cryptocurrency wants to stay there. Thus the general market for legal goods acquired tax efficiently through multiple cryptocurrencies is potentially untapped and could explode as crypto marketcap continues to grow. I think this represents a case for all decentralised marketplaces.
This argument in general is the case for decentralization of marketplace technologies and is the main use case for District0x, Openbazaar, Syscoin etc.
By: Joske

