Wednesday, July 31, 2019
PR: EO Coin Volume Surges on July Listings
This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release.
EO coin showed bullish sentiment this July on the back of numerous new pairs being listed on EO.Trade exchange, including; ETC/EO and NEO/EO. Detailed statistics show EO coin surged from 70 satoshi’s to 315 following the ETC/EO listing on July 11th, before the NEO/EO listing which took place on July 24th.
Next, the BAT/EO pairing will be listed on EO.Trade, scheduled for Wednesday, July 31st at 13:00 (GMT +0:00).
The new listing is expected by analysts to have a similar effect in driving the value of EO coin forward.
EO coin is the heart of the EO Ecosystem of multiple financial products, which includes the EO.Finance Wallet, EO.Trade Exchange, ExpertOption trading platform, EO.Market crypto statistics app and EO.News portal.
Looking forward, one can expect to see the release of the EO Market Analytics app in addition to even more currency pairs being listed against EO coin.
This will be followed by the introduction of token-based accounts at ExpertOption will serve to continue increasing value.
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EO.Trade Crypto Exchange: https://eo.trade
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PR: CheapAir.com and Bitcoin.com Partner to Serve Bitcoin Cash Travelers
CALABASAS, CA (July 31, 2019) – Online travel agency CheapAir.com and Bitcoin.com today announced a partnership to serve crypto travelers. Beginning today, more than 4 million Bitcoin.com Wallet users will be able to access CheapAir.com’s booking engine from their mobile app. The partnership will help crypto travelers find the best deals on flights and hotels around the world.
In 2013, CheapAir.com became the first U.S.-based online travel agency to accept Bitcoin payments for flights and hotels. CheapAir.com now accepts payment in Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum, Litecoin, and Dash. We’ve worked to build a loyal following of crypto users over the years, and build a strong technical platform to support them.
“At CheapAir.com we’re big fans of Bitcoin and we believe people deserve the freedom to use whatever payment methods that fit their lifestyle and values,” said Jeff Klee, CEO of CheapAir.com. “We wanted to partner with Bitcoin.com because of the great work they have done within the Bitcoin community, promoting crypto acceptance around the world. We value our crypto customers and support their efforts to build a more diverse and evolved financial system.”
“Bitcoin.com is really excited to spread real world BCH adoption with CheapAir. Paying for flights and hotels with Bitcoin Cash has never been easier,” said Stefan Rust, CEO of Bitcoin.com.
Travelers who book at CheapAir.com with a cryptocurrency are covered by Price Drop Payback™, which offers up to $100 USD in travel credit if airfares go down after purchase.
CheapAir.com also offers a ton of data and analytics to help travelers get the best airfares. Travelers can use the When to Buy Flights widget to find pricing patterns for an itinerary or check out the newest airfare study to learn about the macrotrends.
About Bitcoin.com
Bitcoin.com is supercharged to change the world with Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Our suite of developer tools has been downloaded 36,000+ times from over 100 countries. Our team is the heart and soul of the Bitcoin Cash industry. We’re committed to making BCH available to all people, whatever their age, gender, nationality or financial status.
For more information: visit https://www.bitcoin.com/
About CheapAir.com
Headquartered in Calabasas, CA, CheapAir’s team of 125 travel enthusiasts use cutting edge technology, a boatload of airfare data, and superior customer service to make it easier to buy affordable airline tickets. We’ve built a proprietary shopping engine that scours the web for the lowest prices in a simple, easy to navigate display. We’ll also tell you which flights have amenities and extra fees, so you can make sure you are comparing apples to apples. For expert travel advice, deals and inspiration connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
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Tuesday, July 30, 2019
China Publishes New Rankings of 37 Crypto Projects
China’s Center for Information and Industry Development has published its latest crypto rankings. Thirty-seven projects have been evaluated and ranked overall as well as in three separate categories. Some favorites have changed and two projects have been added to the previous list of projects ranked.
Also read: G20 Leaders Issue Declaration on Crypto Assets – A Look at Their Commitments
The 13th Update of Crypto Rankings
The Center for Information and Industry Development (CCID), under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, released the 13th update of its crypto project rankings Tuesday. The total number of projects ranked has grown to 37, with two projects added since the last rankings in May.
In addition to the overall ranking, the CCID evaluated all 37 projects based on their basic technology, applicability, and creativity. EOS remains at the top of the overall ranking, followed by Ethereum and then TRON. The center started ranking TRON in February, debuting it at number two overall. However, in the latest ranking, TRON dropped to third place, replaced by Ethereum. BTC now ranks 11th, up one place from May. BCH has also improved, currently occupying the 26th spot overall, up from the 29th place previously.
Two Projects Added
Two other public chains have been added to the previous list of projects ranked — Cosmos and Zilliqa. The former is “an ecosystem of blockchains that can scale and interoperate with each other,” the project’s website details. “Before Cosmos, blockchains were siloed and unable to communicate with each other. They were hard to build and could only handle a small amount of transactions per second. Cosmos solves these problems with a new technical vision.” Cosmos debuts at number 10 in the overall CCID ranking, just below STEEM and above Bitcoin.
The latter proposes “Transaction sharding to improve transaction performance,” the CCID described. “In addition, Zilliqa uses the new smart contract language Scilla to prevent security vulnerabilities that often occur in Solidity, making it easier to perform formal verification.” This project debuts at number 24 in the CCID overall ranking, just below Stratis and above Tezos.
Evaluation Model
The CCID explained Tuesday that the evaluation model used has not changed and the projects are still being evaluated overall as well as in three other areas: Basic Technology, Applicability and Creativity.
The first sub-index, Basic Technology, mainly evaluates the technical realization level of the public chain, the center detailed, adding that it mainly inspects areas such as function, performance, safety and decentralization of the public chain. This sub-index accounts for 65% of the total index. “The average of the overall underlying technology index has slightly decreased from the previous period,” the CCID revealed.
The second sub-index, Applicability, mainly evaluates the comprehensive level of public chain support for practical applications, the center described, adding that this sub-index accounts for 20% of the total index. Four key aspects are examined for this assessment: “node deployment, wallet application, development support and application implementation.” The center noted that “Compared with the previous list, the top five of the applied indicators list did not change.”
The third sub-index, Creativity, mainly examines the continuous innovation of the public chain. According to the center, for this index, the projects were evaluated based on factors such as the number of developers, how recently and often the code is updated, and which other projects have influenced the code. This sub-index accounts for 15% of the total index.
How China Started Crypto Rankings
The CCID describes itself as “a first-class scientific research institution directly under the administration of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.”
The first crypto ranking was published in May last year. A week before its release, on May 11, the center held a symposium on public blockchain technology assessment in Beijing and unveiled the latest progress of the crypto project assessment work carried out by the CCID (Qingdao) blockchain research institute, an entity established by the center. It added that the crypto ranking and evaluation work was done in collaboration with multiple parties such as the CCID think tank and the China Software Evaluation Center. “The result of this assessment will allow the CCID group to provide better technical consulting services for government agencies, business enterprises, research institutes, and technology developers,” the center clarified.
When the first ranking was unveiled to the public, Quartz wrote: “Today (May 17), the China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID), a research unit under the country’s industrial ministry, officially launched its monthly ratings index on 28 crypto coins and the blockchains behind them.” The publication elaborated, “The CCID announced the initiative last week, citing the lack of an independent analysis of crypto and blockchain as a guide for governments, enterprises, and research institutes around the world.”
Recent Bullish Signs From China
There have been some positive developments out of China lately regarding cryptocurrency. According to local media, Hangzhou Internet Court has recognized bitcoin as a commodity in what the publication described as the first case of bitcoin property infringement dispute. “On July 18, this court confirmed the ‘virtual property’ attribute of bitcoin, which is the first time that Chinese courts have determined the virtual property attribute of digital currencies,” according to the news outlet.
In addition, Bank of China, one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in the country, published an infographic on July 26 about bitcoin, how it works, and why the price is going up. The cryptosphere views this move as bullish.
What do you think of the latest CCID ranking update? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the CCID.
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via Kevin Helms
When Cash Is Banned, Centralized Cryptos Are Not Going to Save You
Australia is now moving forward with its proposed legislation to ban cash purchases over 10,000 AUD ($6,900) for business purposes. According to the treasury website: “The Black Economy Taskforce recommended this action to tackle tax evasion and other criminal activities.” While many Aussies are celebrating Bitcoin’s exclusion from this clause, others find the move away from hard cash somewhat chilling. After all, if this finally goes through, banks and the state will be given sole power to deny or approve any and all purchases above this limit. Crypto is not yet affected, but when cash is erased, and the control grid is tightened, be sure that centralized shitcoins are not going to save anyone, either.
Also Read: Five of the Most Important Use Cases for Cryptocurrency
Never Mind the Hype Parade
There’s always been a lot of zealous hype in crypto circles. Search “bitcoin” on Twitter and you’ll be overwhelmed with an avalanche of largely meaningless noise. “Feeling really bullish right now thanks to X, Y, Z!” “If you don’t have any Bitcoin by now, you’re doing it wrong.” “Crypto #Revolution.” These hyped-up voices flash in the pan like cheap sparklers, and tend go quiet when the markets tank. They talk about being “unbanked” and the revolution of all things “powered by blockchain.”
But at the end of the day, what the hell does all this really mean? A lot of people seem to think that freedom in finance can come easily, without a fight or intentional action. That the dynasty of powers that be are just going to roll over and accept a money they cannot control. For all the shouts of “ditch fiat!” and “why are people still using statist play money?” very few seem to understand the real score, which is this: there’s no war being waged on your technology, but on its ability to provide you with financial autonomy, self-sufficiency, and privacy.
The really bad news for these folks, though, is that if Australia pushes through this ban on cash purchases, and they are forced to use only digital assets and credit, it doesn’t matter how much of whatever centralized crypto shitcoin anyone holds. At that point, the state is in control, and fiat cash–as evil as it is–would be a lot more friendly.
Five Eyes On Privacy
The alliance of Five Eyes nations (FVEY) really seems to have chosen Australia as a testing ground for implementing Orwellian, anti-privacy measures. Aussies are no longer allowed to be secure in their communications thanks to a controversial new law outlawing encrypted devices and chat applications. Now they are moving away from the privacy of paper money as well. This ostensibly to combat drug trafficking and terrorism via almost completely state-supervised monetary transactions for everyone.
It likely won’t be long until similar laws make their way into other FVEY countries like the United States, the U.K., Canada, and New Zealand. If that happens, the only cryptocurrencies that will be able to help secure value are those that are open source, private, secure and decentralized. Not surprisingly, these are the very coins now being specifically targeted by these nations, and slandered as “tools for criminals.”
The Survival of Sound Money
If sound money is to survive this financial tyranny, it seems there might be some kind of battle. Many believe technological innovation can make this struggle a more or less peaceful one. When dealing with groups that do not respect the individual, inalienable rights of human beings to their bodies, minds, and property, however, there always comes a point where “no” must be uttered.
Whether it be boldly proclaimed from a stage in the spotlight or silently through a private action or transaction, it still must happen. There is no change without conscious, human action. Bitcoin allows for this by being decentralized. No state has control over the network. “No” is still an option. “No” is still somewhat of an option with fiat paper as well, as much as sensationalists might hate to hear it, or fear to say it.
Cash Is Better Than State-Controlled Shitcoins
These aforementioned hypesters don’t get that the propagandized fiat money they rail against (and indeed they are correct in their criticisms) is still much more private and useful than a centralized, government-regulated digital money could or ever would be. The Ripple crowd, for example, brags about how realistic and adoption-friendly they are, the company itself writing a saccharine, syrupy letter to Congress on July 29. They speak about wanting to comply with whatever regulations must be put in place:
We don’t take for granted the vital role of central banks in issuing currencies and setting monetary policy in concert with the complex dynamics of economies around the world. For centuries, governments have been well suited for the job because paramount to the acceptance of any currency is trust.
Well-suited? For what job? Is debasing and devaluing people’s money, letting terrorists and violent traffickers off the hook, and losing trillions, spending trillions to finance the death and destruction of hundreds of thousands in war and democide “well-suited”? They’ve lost their minds.
If crypto is to be useful, it has to resemble the models of gold and cash, as far as privacy and user autonomy is concerned, and improve upon them immensely–not make a mealy-mouthed return to state-sponsored, central bank-controlled play money irrelevancy. Imagine being an Australian business owner and trying to buy something, but it’s too expensive to pay for with cash. For whatever reason, your bank cannot approve the purchase. Your account is frozen, or their servers are down. You’re stuck. This issue doesn’t exist with physical money. But it already does with bank accounts and centralized crypto exchanges.
Dignity for the Win
The moment someone tells you in your private life that you’re “not allowed” to have something that is rightfully yours, and they try to steal it, you cease trusting them, and cut off the relationship. Why, when it comes to the state, should things be any different?
Like a patient off his head on painkillers, these people talk about pie-in-the-sky crypto utopias to be brought about by “blockchain revolutions” controlled by the very people who oppress them the most. Writing letters to Congress. Laughing at the “idealists” who wish to retain the keys to their holdings.
When cash is out, erased, kaput, if blockchain is going to save people, it’s going to be secure money, and not state shitcoins or digital, bank-regulated credit and debt. What the poor Twitter zealots have missed is that this peaceful resistance for non-violent money called the “crypto revolution” is not about just “getting rich,” but at its root is about preserving the dignity of precious, individual human life everywhere.
What are your thoughts on Australia’s move to ban cash, and on centralized crypto tokens? Let us know in the comments section below.
OP-ed disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any information in this Op-ed article.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
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Monday, July 29, 2019
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Large Regulated Token Sales Indicate ICOs May Be Coming Back
Initial coin offerings have seen a significant decline in popularity, but they are not to be written off completely. Although you don’t hear the term “ICO” so often nowadays, some recent regulatory developments indicate they have a place in the digital economy realm. Crowdfunding through token sales has a chance of becoming a mainstream instrument for raising capital.
Also read: The Next Big Financial Meltdown Is Around the Corner, Many Voices Warn
Germany’s Financial Regulator Approves €250M Coin Offering
As if to prove coin offerings are not a dying genre, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, Bafin, recently approved one of a decent size. Through its token sale, the Berlin-based blockchain startup Fundament Group is trying to raise €250 million ($278 million). According to the announcement, both accredited and retail investors will be able to take part in the fundraising campaign and individual investments will not be limited.
The project aims to enable participants to invest in the construction of commercial real estate through its Real Estate Tokens. At this early stage, it covers three sites in Hamburg, one in the financial capital Frankfurt, and another one in the university city of Jena, Forklog reported. Fundament Group’s ERC20 tokens will allow holders to receive annual dividends of 4-8% on their investments as well as payments upon completion of the construction works.
The German startup plans to conduct the token sale without an intermediary such as an investment bank, as the goal is to minimize the costs of the offering. Investors will be able to acquire the assets using either bitcoin core, ethereum, U.S. dollars or euros. Those who pay with fiat currency will receive the tokens safely stored on a hardware wallet. And as the coin offering is regulated, passing KYC is a mandatory requirement for all investors.
Projects such as Fundament Group’s show that token sales may be returning, and not only in Europe but across the pond as well. In the first days of July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved Blockstack’s $28 million offering. The company, which is building a decentralized computing network and app ecosystem, has received permission to raise up to $50 million annually. SEC also gave the green light to the distribution of $187 million worth of Props tokens between content creators and users of the streaming platform Younow.
Russia Legalizes Crowdfunding With a New Law Applicable to Token Sales
The Russian Federation, which is in the top five destinations for ICOs, has adopted a legal framework to regulate the raising of capital through crowdfunding. This week, the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, voted on third and final reading the long awaited Law “On Attracting Investments Using Investment Platforms,” commonly referred to as the “Crowdfunding Law.”
The bill, which is part of a whole package aimed at regulating the Russian digital economy, including the crypto sector, introduces some key new terms such as “utilitarian digital rights.” These include the right to demand the transfer of objects, the performance of work, or the provision of services as well as the transfer of exclusive rights to the results of intellectual activity.
The new legislation establishes rules and regulations that will govern crowdfunding platforms. For example, they will be required to have at least 5 million rubles (almost $80,000) of their own capital. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) will keep a register of the entities that operate them and closely monitor their activities. The law also introduces safeguards for “unqualified investors.” They will be allowed to spend only up to 600,000 rubles ($9,500) annually on all crowdfunding platforms in Russia.
At this stage, cryptocurrencies are not explicitly mentioned in the crowdfunding law, although many of its texts are applicable to the crypto industry. The biggest shortcoming of the new legislation is its reliance on substatutory acts adopted by the CBR which remains opposed to the full legalization of decentralized currencies. Another problem is that in order to fulfill its full potential, the bill needs other laws that regulate the rest of the crypto space.
Russia has been postponing the adoption of its main crypto-related bill, the Law “On Digital Financial Assets,” for over a year now, despite several deadlines set by President Putin’s administration. The last one, July of this year, is not going to be met either. The draft, which was voted on first reading in the spring of 2018, is likely to be adopted in October, according to Anatoliy Aksakov, chair of the parliamentary Financial Market Committee. By that time a common position between various Russian institutions should be achieved with respect to the regulation of cryptocurrencies.
Aksakov also noted that all three bills in the regulatory package – which define digital rights, legalize smart contracts, and regulate crowdfunding – are closely interconnected. He believes a compromise between the positions of various Russian regulators and authorities is possible. “By October 1, this issue should be settled by law. Readiness is high and we are going to work hard in September,” the lawmaker was quoted saying by the Parliamentary Gazette.
Regulations Bring Coin Offerings Into the Mainstream
Beside Russia, many other countries have so far adopted legislation that regulates crowdfunding in one degree or another. In Belarus, for example, a decree signed by President Lukashenko entered into force in March of last year legalizing crypto-related activities including the issuance, storage, and trading of digital tokens. Estonia attracted many startups with crypto-friendly legislation and a great number of ICOs offered in other jurisdictions are actually conducted by entities registered in the Baltic country.
In the United States, which is the leader in terms of number of conducted coin offerings, the challenges for companies raising capital through token sales have changed significantly over the past couple of years. While many ICOs were initially conducted under the assumption that the issued coins represented utility tokens, a number of official statements and regulatory actions have indicated that U.S. authorities view most ICOs as offerings of securities that fall within the scope of the country’s securities laws.
Initial coin offerings in China were effectively banned with a circular issued by the People’s Bank and other financial regulators in the fall of 2017. The document determined that ICOs represented an illegal fundraising activity. In Hong Kong, however, digital tokens sold for crowdfunding purposes are regarded as securities and ICOs can be conducted by licensed entities as a regulated activity. Unlicensed issuers can also sell tokens provided they work with authorized institutional investors.
Are ICOs Returning?
Initial coin offerings took a hard hit during the prolonged crypto winter that set in last year after the all-time highs of late 2017. According to data compiled by the rating platform Icobench, with a few exceptions, the number of ICOs has been generally decreasing since August 2018, when 321 ICOs were published. A low of 58 coin offerings was reached in February of this year. However, there’s been a slight increase in May, with 88 token sales. It coincided with the latest period of rising crypto prices which started in April.
More than 90% of the ICOs tracked by Icobench have already ended, 6% are ongoing and around 2% are upcoming. The 5,639 coin offerings are from 25 different industries, with the great majority collecting funds to create a new platform or provide products and services related to cryptocurrencies. With 751 ICOs and $7.5 billion of capital raised, the U.S. is topping the charts. Singapore, U.K., Russia and Estonia are hosting the largest number of ICOs after the United States, while the British Virgin Islands and Switzerland are in the top five by raised funds.
A monthly report published by Icobench in early June shows there’s been a decrease of the total funds raised in ICOs to $230 million and the average funds raised by a project to $7.4 million in comparison with the previous period’s almost $1.2 billion and $29.7 million respectively. At the same time, the share of ICOs that have raised any positive amount of funds remained above the general average. June recorded 31 successful ICOs with a success rate of 28%, an indicator calculated by dividing the ICOs that raised funds by the ICOs which ended.
Initial exchange offerings (IEOs) continue to enjoy rising popularity and over $1 billion were raised through IEOs in May. The report notes there had been 182 IEOs by the end of June and they have raised a total of $1.597 billion with a success rate of over 60%. Around 90% of the funds have been raised on the top five launchpads, with Coineal leading by number of IEOs and Bitfinex topping the list by raised funds.
Many projects conducting initial coin offerings accept not only fiat money for their tokens but also major cryptocurrencies. If you are new to the crypto space but you are willing to participate in the industry, you may need an easy and secure way to acquire digital assets. Bitcoin.com offers you the opportunity to purchase bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin core (BTC) and other leading coins such as ethereum (ETH), ripple (XRP), litecoin (LTC) and Binance coin (BNB). You can do that using a credit card and without visiting a cryptocurrency exchange.
Do you expect ICOs to regain popularity with rising cryptocurrency prices? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Icobench.
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via Lubomir Tassev
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Five of the Most Important Use Cases for Cryptocurrency
Crypto assets have come a long way since Bitcoin. What started out as a P2P payment system has spawned an array of use cases that extend far beyond the original designation of cryptocurrency. While the primary function of crypto assets such as ETH and BTC is a matter of some debate, what’s indisputable is that digital currencies can now be used for more than merely paying for goods and services. Here are five use cases for crypto assets that demonstrate the extent of the fintech revolution taking place.
Also read: 10,000 American Cryptocurrency Owners Will Receive Warning Letters From the IRS
Use Case 1: Digital Cash
Conceived as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, if the title of Satoshi’s whitepaper is to be taken at face value, Bitcoin lived up to its billing for the first five years. Before the mainstream came to terms with Bitcoin, it fueled a nascent digital economy that included black market goods (Silk Road) and gambling (Satoshi Dice). It was also accepted by hundreds of tech-savvy merchants and early adopters, for purchasing everything from graphics cards to t-shirts.
As network fees began to rise, forcing numerous merchants to drop support for BTC, a growing cult of Bitcoin Core loyalists, who would come to be known as maximalists, started advocating a store of value (SoV) narrative over that of a medium of exchange (MoE). With BTC becoming unsuitable for low cost payments, the P2P torch passed to Bitcoin Cash, which sprung to life in mid-2017 as a fork of Bitcoin. The BCH network has since maintained its community’s goal of facilitating fast and low-cost payments, with thousands of merchants accepting bitcoin cash in store and online.
Meanwhile, during the 2017 ICO boom, scores of crypto projects sprung up with generic payment tokens attached to them as the justification for raising funds. When the tide went out on the crypto market in early 2018, it became evident that native ERC20 payment tokens simply weren’t feasible, with most dying a slow death due to high velocity and low liquidity. The crypto assets that survive today as P2P currencies are largely limited to pre-2015 coins such as dash and litecoin.
Use Case 2: Programmable Money
Smart contracts actually predate Bitcoin, having been conceived by Nick Szabo (who is himself credited with being one of the likelier candidates to be Satoshi Nakamoto). Smart contracts are simply blockchain-based executable code that actions a particular outcome provided certain conditions have been met. Although synonymous with Ethereum, most crypto networks have a degree of smart contract functionality, including Bitcoin itself.
RSK has devised a smart contracting platform that capitalizes on the security of the Bitcoin blockchain and its network effects. As BTC’s dominance over altcoins has grown this year, so has the appeal of building on Bitcoin ahead of less decentralized alternatives such as Tron and EOS. As a result, developers that might have previously flocked to so-called “second-gen” blockchains, have had cause to look at Bitcoin in a whole new light. As for the Bitcoin Cash network, Simple Ledger Protocol has facilitated the issuance of sub-tokens, created using opcodes that Satoshi originally incorporated into the Bitcoin protocol.
Use Case 3: Collateral
Lending has become one of the most important applications of the burgeoning decentralized finance (defi) movement, enabling individuals to collateralize fiat loans against cryptocurrency and vice-versa. On the Ethereum network, lending services such as Maker, Compound, and Instadapp have flourished, with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of assets now locked up in lending protocols. Other defi lending solutions include Dharma and Dydx, while centralized alternatives include Salt, Youhodler, and Nexo, which allow people to obtain a fiat loan in exchange for locking up their crypto. There’s also the option for hodlers to earn annualized interest by locking their cryptocurrency into these lending protocols.
Use Case 4: Governance
Governance might not sound like the most exciting of use cases for cryptocurrency, but on-chain voting is a very effective means of ensuring provable voter turnout. Bitcoin miners have long engaged in primitive governance by signalling support for protocol changes by signing new blocks; in June 2017 for instance, 80% of the BTC network’s hashrate was adding the letters “NYA” to blocks in support of the New York Agreement (which ultimately failed).
Aragon Network Vote #3 is now over!
The results have been locked in using the Aragon Governance Voting apps:https://t.co/b3JJ2FDz6C
Here is a thread with the results from the vote:
— Aragon (@AragonProject) July 27, 2019
Blockchain governance has gotten more sophisticated since then, with Dash, introducing a successful budget voting mechanism that’s been emulated by scores of projects. There are now crypto assets whose primary function includes governance, such as 0x, maker, decred and dfinity. In addition, crypto projects such as Aragon incorporate governance through enabling token-holders to vote on key decisions using a dapp. So far, participation in on-chain governance has been low for crypto projects, showing that voter apathy is a universal problem.
Use Case 5: Collectibles
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represent unique digital assets. These typically comprise in-game collectibles such as skins or characters, or in virtual reality games can represent digital land or property. This makes it possible to trade the assets to fellow collectors or players, and ensures full ownership of the collectible. That’s not to say that NFTs are fully decentralized, however, as their value still depends on a central authority, say Cryptokitties or Cheeze Wizards, which hosts the image associated with each token and controls the virtual world it operates in. Nevertheless, collectibles represent a growing vertical within the cryptosphere, with NFTs likely to become deeply embedded into esports and virtual reality in the years to come.
Evolving Applications for Crypto Assets
Cryptocurrencies are still young, and thus many of the envisioned use cases for them have yet to fully materialize, often because the infrastructure is still being built. Security tokens, hybrid tokens, derivatives, crypto commodities, privacy coins, stablecoins, work tokens, discount tokens and many more have still to establish themselves, but are likely to gain a foothold as crypto adoption increases and the ecosystem matures.
From national reserve currency to time-stamping documents, Bitcoin continues to prove its versatility. One of the best things about permissionless networks is that anyone can use them however they see fit, be it at the base layer or via secondary and tertiary layers. The crypto space has evolved in leaps and bounds over the past decade. 10 years from now, crypto assets will be serving functions that we have yet to envisage, let alone design.
What other use cases do you envisage for crypto assets in the future? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Defi.pulse.
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via Kai Sedgwick
Friday, July 26, 2019
SLP Developers Publish Specs for a Unique Type of Non-Fungible Tokens
The Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) has become a popular project within the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem because it gives anyone the ability to issue and transfer tokens in a permissionless fashion. Since the project was announced last year, there’s been a myriad of tokens created on the BCH chain. A few SLP tokens have launched on exchanges and some of these tokens have gathered real value and utility. SLP developers have now revealed a new specification, which extends the SLP token type 1 protocol allowing for the creation of non-fungible tokens that can be grouped together using a single ID.
Also Read: Another Self-Proclaimed Satoshi Appears in the High Profile Bitcoin Lawsuit
The Simple Ledger Protocol and Tokenization Becomes a Mainstay Within the Bitcoin Cash Ecosystem
In the summer of 2018, it was well known that at some point in the near future the Bitcoin Cash blockchain would host a token creation protocol that allowed anyone to mint and transfer BCH-based tokens. During the month of July, at least four BCH token projects were revealed around the same timeframe. This was after the 32MB upgrade in the spring, which also re-enabled some old Satoshi opcodes and bumped the network’s default data-carrier-size to 220 bytes.
Out of all the token projects, the Simple Ledger Protocol jumped ahead of the pack, becoming a mainstay within the BCH ecosystem. The SLP system simply draws from the transaction chain of the existing Bitcoin Cash framework. The protocol essentially uses the metadata within an OP_RETURN transaction for the issuance and transfer of tokens.
“You can think of SLP as a ‘transaction within a transaction,” the project’s website explains. “SLP transactions live within a special output known as OP_RETURN, which is a part of a standard Bitcoin Cash transaction.” The website adds:
If Alice wants to send Bob some tokens, she sends a minimal (dust) amount of BCH, and the transaction also contains the data to transfer the tokens. You may be interested in reading the protocol specification, which is comprehendible to the average Bitcoin-minded reader.
NFT1: An Extention of the SLP Token Type 1 Protocol
Today there are a bunch of tokens that have been created on top of the BCH chain using the SLP scheme. The most popular tokens used on the network according to July 25 statistics are coins like honk, spice, honk token, brave sound token, and acd. On July 11, SLP developers James Cramer and Jonald Fyookball published the first draft specification for a “simple extension to the SLP token type 1 protocol.”
The documentation refers to a design called NFT1, which stands for “non-fungible tokens,” which are unique but can be grouped together. Non-fungible tokens were already possible with SLP, the developers explain, if a person created a non-divisible token with a total supply of one. The SLP programmers call these type of tokens “Simple NFTs” but NFT1s extend the protocol, allowing NFT-styled tokens to be aggregated using a single ID.
“Having the ability to group NFTs in a provable manner opens the doors for many more token applications, and makes SLP more similar to other NFT protocols (e.g., ERC-721),” the Github specs note. “NFT1 uses the same validation rules as SLP token type 1 with a few additional constraints and requirements.”
News.Bitcoin.com asked SLP developer James Cramer if there were plans to implement the ability to mint NFT1 type tokens using the SLP version of the Electron Cash wallet. Cramer said that “it was done in the latest code” and the feature will be in the next version release. The developer said he planned on waiting to finish an update to SLP validation to speed up the validation for big token graphs. The specification published on July 11 summarizes the method for initiating a new SLP token with NFT1 group minting. Cramer and Fyookball’s NFT1 documentation also acknowledges the developers Mark Lundeberg, Imaginary_username, and Dexx7 for suggestions and review.
Rare Collectibles, Raffles, Tickets, and Blockchain Extensible Games
The newly designed NFT1 concept opens the doors to even more token ideas created on top of the BCH network. NFT1s use the same transaction chain within the BCH chain and operate just like a basic and fungible SLP token. The biggest distinguishing factor is that the tokens are non-fungible but also harness the ability to be grouped just like type 1 tokens which makes the NFT1 type perfect for digitizing unique assets. A set of clustered non-fungible tokens can spawn ideas like onchain raffles, lotteries, or tickets to an event. Another concept is the creation of distinct collectible tokens and someone could create sets of rare SLP coins.
For example, NFT1s can be made to design collectible tokens similar to concepts like the Cryptokitties project built on Ethereum or Rare Pepe cards which use Counterparty. Games could also be created on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain using SLP tokens that work similarly to Spells of Genesis or Mafia Wars. SLP-based blockchain games could be extensible, allowing developers to create NFT1-styled armor, weapons, and vehicles. Even though the SLP tokens would use the same group ID, the value of each NFT1 would be different because they are all unique. The system is far more robust than simply issuing a basic NFT from the same address because the new NFT1 standard is determined by the group ID.
Tokenization Concepts Can Bring More Onchain Transactions Tied to the Liquidity From a Secondary Marketplace
Token creation has come a long way on the BCH chain and the concept has also evolved on alternative blockchains. With the case of the Simple Ledger Protocol, the project has matured a great deal since it was announced last summer. BCH fans like the protocol, because whenever you issue, transfer or receive SLP tokens, all transferred data is recorded onchain, which in turn can bolster the number of transactions within the BCH network. SLP is permissionless and there’s absolutely no permission required to issue or transfer the tokens. The protocol’s rule set supports a fault-tolerant consensus layer and is very simple to use.
This basically means you don’t need to be a master software engineer to create tokens and developers have released intuitive token creation programs within platforms like Electron Cash and Memo.cash. SLP tokens have also received wide support from the BCH ecosystem and are SPV friendly as wallets like Badger, Ifwallet, Crescent Cash, Memo, and Electron Cash help users validate their own transactions. Users can also verify transactions using the site Simpleledger.info or use Bitcoin.com’s BCH Block Explorer. With NFT1 tokens on the horizon, the SLP system is growing further as tokenization is becoming far more robust by allowing for concepts like collectibles, regulated securities, tickets, and controlled whitelists.
What do you think about the newly published NFT1 specification? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Bitcoincash.org, Simpleledger.info, Simpleledger.cash, Rare Pepe cards, Cryptokitties, Github, and Twitter.
How could our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool help you? Use the handy Bitcoin address search bar to track down transactions on both the BCH and BTC blockchain and, for even more industry insights, visit our in-depth Bitcoin Charts.
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Thursday, July 25, 2019
The Next Big Financial Meltdown Is Around the Corner, Many Voices Warn
“The economy is looking great,” how many times have they told you that? And why do you usually hear it when you are late on a mortgage payment or during a downsizing purge at your company? Relying on your senses is always a safer bet than trusting the wishful thinking of those who invested political capital in failed solutions. The chorus of voices warning about the next ‘Big One’ has become hard to ignore.
Also read: Money Laundering Fines Help Bankers Avoid Prosecution
A Pending Disaster, Worse Than the Last Crash
It looks like the next big financial crisis is coming, and while cycles are a natural feature of market economies under normal circumstances, this one is promising to be a bit different. The global economy has been somewhat expanding for the better part of the past decade, although many experts would say that governments and central banks have only reinflated the bubbles that popped in 2008. Indeed, what quantitative easing and record low interest rates mostly did was to mitigate the symptoms, not cure the disease.
The financial meltdown we had over 10 years ago was mostly caused by debt. But instead of addressing the core issue in a way that would allow a lasting solution, policy makers around the world led their economies into deeper debt by printing more money via quantitative easing (QE) and cutting interest rates to previously unseen low levels, below zero in some cases. The result of these futile efforts is a skyrocketing debt which actually dwarfs the pre-crisis borrowing.
Stock broker and financial commentator Peter Schiff, one of those who accurately predicted the Great Recession, believes the upcoming quake will be epicentered around sovereign debt and a crisis with the U.S. dollar, which has been the world’s reserve currency for many years. Borrowing now is greater than during the height of the last critical period, in 2009 – 2010. Thanks to Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, the United States government is running a billion-dollar-a-month budget deficit. Trade deficits are at record highs as well.
The U.S. debt surpasses $21 trillion, while the pace with which all debt grows is many times greater than the growth rate of GDP. According to the Lending tree website, collectively Americans owe 26% of their income to consumer debt, compared to 22% in 2010. The indicator is higher than during the credit boom in the mid-2000s. According to Ron Paul, a famous libertarian and a staunch critic of the federal government in Washington and its fiscal and tax policies, as the U.S. financial system unravels, “the seriousness of it will become evident to all, as the need to pay for our extravagance becomes obvious.”
This will make the country much poorer, [while] the elite class that manages such affairs will suffer the least.
In a video, published on the Liberty Report platform last year, Paul noted that by the time the QE ended, the central banks of the world had increased their balance sheets by $8.3 trillion, with only $2.1 trillion worth of GDP growth compensating. “This left 6.2 trillion dollars of excess liquidity in the banking system that did not go where the economic planners had hoped,” the former congressman remarked. And the result is that central banks now own almost $10 trillion of negative interest yielding bonds.
“The financial system has been left with a bubble mania financed by artificial credit and unsustainable debt,” Paul noted. The inflationary policy, he pointed out, is generated by the belief that there’s no benefit in allowing the needed economic correction to the problems generated by the Federal Reserve to occur. “The correction is what the market requires, not the resumptions and the dangerous inflationary policy that caused the bubble economy,” the maverick politician stressed.
Tell-Tale Signs That a Big One Is Coming
Many others say the financial system today is even more fragile than in 2007 and 2008. The cheap money the Fed and other central banks printed and gave out to commercial banks inflated the stock and bond market, instead of increasing the capital available to small businesses that are still driving the economy in many developed countries. Interest rate cuts have been creating another bubble in the real estate sector. Meanwhile, consumer debt has risen back to pre-crisis levels and corporate borrowing has soared. While some governments have reduced annual deficits, they continue to sit on mountains of debt.
The signs that many things aren’t going well have been mounting. The property market in the U.S., which triggered the previous crisis, is hurting again. The number of mortgage applications has been falling, despite the drop in the average interest rate, and existing home sales, which form about 90% of U.S. home sales, declined over 5% this spring from a year ago. At the same time, the 1.5 million new vehicles sold in the U.S. in June represent a decline of 4.7% from May and 2.8% year over year. Passenger car sales fell 9.5%, according to the automotive industry portal Marklines. Even iPhone sales fell 17% during the year’s first quarter.
It’s been reported that by April of this year, U.S. retailers had announced the upcoming closure of almost 6,000 stores, which exceeds the number for the whole of 2018. Meanwhile, credit card and auto loan delinquencies have hit a seven-year high. The number of unemployed Americans rose to 6 million in June, while those U.S. citizens, 16 years and over, that for various reasons are not in the labor force has increased to more than 96 million. The total of 102 million who don’t have a job exceeds the numbers during the recession. At the same time, many of the newly added jobs are not well paid as wage growth remains very slow. More than half a million people in the U.S. are homeless as they can’t afford to buy or rent a home.
Other early warning signs of upcoming troubles were highlighted by Sheila Bair, who headed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) during the 2008 crisis. She was among those who predicted the subprime mortgage crash and argued against bailing out the big banks. This time, she raised the alarm about several major areas of concern including the reduced bank capital requirements, federal budget deficit, private debt and also student loan debt. Bair is not an enemy of bitcoin and she thinks the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies don’t have intrinsic value, either. “Let the market figure out what it’s worth,” she said about bitcoin during an interview with Barron’s last year.
Not a Single Problem Solved Since the Great Recession
Cryptocurrency is among the assets that can be used to protect your wealth when the next big crisis hits, according to Marc Friedrich, a finance strategy consultant and best-selling author based in Germany. He believes real assets limited by nature, such as land, real estate, and precious metals like gold and silver, can help you diversify your holdings, “but also Bitcoin, which is limited by math.”
In a recent edition of the Geopolitics & Empire podcast, Friedrich discussed the imminent financial recession and how we got to this point. “Since the 2008 crisis, we did not solve a single problem. We lowered the interest rates to a record low level and we flooded the world with cheap money. The central banks created one financial bubble after the other and now we have the biggest bubble in history,” he said. The analyst thinks the bubble is everywhere now, not only in the financial market, but in government bonds as well.
Trillions of dollars spent to solve the problem just created a new mess, a bigger bubble and when this one bursts, 2008 will look like a kindergarten. This one will be epic.
The economist, who wrote one of Germany’s most successful business books in 2014, “The Crash is the Solution: Why the Ultimate Collapse is Coming and How You Can Protect Your Wealth,” warned that societies today have problems everywhere, from the homelessness issues in the U.S. to the refugee crisis in Europe. Marc Friedrich thinks the coming recession can bring the end of the euro, a monetary union between economies with significant differences.
“We have a historically low interest rate. It’s been 0% for three years since 2016,” he remarked, pointing out that Mario Draghi is the first president of the European Central Bank who never raised the interest rate during his term. “Australia has the lowest interest rates in history, at 1%, the Chinese national bank cut the rates lower than ever before, even during the 2008 financial crisis, at 3.5%. It’s a race between dying currencies,” Friedrich stated. He also warned that the recipe used to deal with the last recession – printing money and cutting interest rates – will not work this time and China won’t be able to bail out the rest.
No Tools to Deal With the Next Crisis
Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen shares similar fears: “I think it is a real concern that the Fed might not have all the tools that are needed in order to respond [to a new crisis]. The fundamental reason why it’s a problem is that even before the financial crisis, the general level of interest rates in most developed economies, including the United States, had been drifting down,” she said in an interview with Yale Insights this past December.
While financial cycles are a natural occurrence in a market economy, political cycles are pertinent to liberal democracy. Unfortunately, as it turns out, both can bring suffering to the individual. During the post-recession years, the Federal Reserve gradually raised the interest rate in the U.S. to 2.5%. In the eve of the 2020 presidential elections, however, pressure from the White House is mounting for a cut. Maintaining that the Fed is independent from the executive power, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome H. Powell, nevertheless, admitted that the central bank is weighing whether another rate reduction will be necessary.
“We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble,” Donald Trump said back in 2016, when his bid to take over the White House was on the line. Now, in the eve of 2020, which ironically has been coined by pundits as the Year of the Next Big One, the fight is to keep the White House. And he is probably hoping that a rate cut would provide a pre-election boost to the economy. Although such a move might yield short-term results in the form of economic and political capital, many like Marc Friedrich fear it would only temporarily inflate a stock market bubble.
The rising prices of cryptocurrencies in the past few months indicate that more and more investors, but also many ordinary people, see in these decentralized digital assets an opportunity to hedge against the upcoming fiat crash. Getting into the ecosphere has its challenges but crypto companies have been successfully developing services that make it easier. For example, Bitcoin.com can help you buy both bitcoin cash (BCH) and bitcoin core (BTC) in a few easy steps, using a credit card and without the need to visit a crypto exchange.
Do you think the next big financial crisis is coming in 2020? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
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via Lubomir Tassev