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Developers of the Sharktron Defi have exit scammed with reports suggesting that TRX tokens worth up to $10 million are missing. The Tron Foundation has confirmed the theft but is quick to inform Sharktron token holders that a portion of the missing funds has been frozen. The exit scam comes a few weeks after the […]
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Developers of the Sharktron Defi have exit scammed with reports suggesting that TRX tokens worth up to $10 million are missing. The Tron Foundation has confirmed the theft but is quick to inform Sharktron token holders that a portion of the missing funds has been frozen. The exit scam comes a few weeks after the Sharktron devs issued a press release inviting investors to buy the token.
Binance Freezes Part of Stolen Funds
However, Justin Sun’s Tron Foundation, seemingly too eager to get past this event, has issued a response on Twitter. The statement, which does not state the value of funds stolen, says:
Regarding the shark incident, we have contacted Binance and worked together on chasing down the funds and people behind this. A portion of the funds has been frozen on Binance. If you were a victim in this case, please file a police report and work with law enforcement to seek recovery. We will be also working with all exchanges to track the rest of the funds and protect the interest of the Tron communities.
Sharktron, which issued a press release about the Defi project in October, claims the project’s “main task is to create a complete platform autonomy with a gradual transition to self-management by community members.”
However, shortly after the press statement, users on Twitter began querying the Defi project’s claims of high returns in a very short space of time. Some began making the scam allegations after token holders reported problems accessing the Sharktron website.
Red Flags Ignored
According to one report, Twitter users repeatedly warned Sun about the fraudulent nature of the Sharktron project. However, the report says Sun “ignored the red flags.” The Sharktron protocol is listed on another Sun creation, the Justswap decentralized exchange (DEXs).
In addition, the report states that despite the mounting concerns and complaints, the Justswap platform still gave its seal of approval to the Sharktron project by whitelisting it.
Meanwhile, some Twitter users reacted to the Tron Foundation’s tweet by asking for a fair reimbursement process. A Twitter user named Brindan SC writes:
I lose 357500 TRX …Please allocate frozen funds to all investors as a percentage of their investment..
In October, the Tron Foundation announced it will be reimbursing TRX holders that cannot access their tokens on the Okex crypto exchange. It remains to be seen if the foundation is going to repeat the same compensation plan following the Sharktron exit scam.
In the meantime, other Twitter users believe that Sun and his Tron Foundation may be complicit in this scam just as he has been with other scams.
What should be the formula when reimbursing recovered stolen funds? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
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Bitcoin (BTC) has chalked up a stellar price rally in the past two months, reaching 33-month highs close to $16,000. The uptrend began in early September after buyers bought a dip below $10,000, and gathered pace in the second half of October. Last week, prices reached a high of $15,971, a level last seen in […]
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Bitcoin (BTC) has chalked up a stellar price rally in the past two months, reaching 33-month highs close to $16,000.
The uptrend began in early September after buyers bought a dip below $10,000, and gathered pace in the second half of October.
Last week, prices reached a high of $15,971, a level last seen in January 2018. That’s a 63% price gain in eight weeks, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index.
Over 2018 and 2019, bitcoin often languished below $10,000, struggling to recover from a crash that followed the late 2017 surge to record highs near $20,000.
So, what’s behind the rapid gains in recent weeks? Here are three of the primary factors driving the bull market:
1. Increased institutional participation
“Over the past eight weeks, we have seen various notable public companies and hedge funds enter the cryptocurrency market with sizable deployment of capital,” Matthew Dibb, co-founder, and COO of Singapore-based Stack Funds said.
On Sept. 15, listed business intelligence firm Microstrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) announced the purchase of $250 million worth of bitcoins, and three weeks later payments company Square (NYSE: SQ) also disclosed its investment in the bitcoin market.
In October, leverage in the derivatives market was also skewed bullish, with institutions holding record long positions in bitcoin futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Also read: Institutions Take Record Bullish Bets in Bitcoin Futures, Shrugging Off Exchange Missteps
The increased institutional participation likely created upward pressure on prices. Further, it buoyed broader market sentiment and likely prompted more buyers to join the market.
The number of bitcoin whale entities – clusters of addresses held by a single network participant holding at least 1,000 BTC – rose to four-year highs at the end of October. Retail participation increased, too, as suggested by the “accumulation addresses” metric rising to record highs.
Since the coronavirus pandemic hit, expectations for additional U.S. fiscal stimulus alongside the Federal Reserve’s ongoing inflation-boosting bond purchase programs have triggered fears of a dollar sell-off, and motivated both institutions and retailers to put at least some money into bitcoin.
“The talks of further stimulus efforts has put bitcoin on the map as a quasi-safe haven, possessing many of the store-of-value qualities of gold, despite its relatively [brief] existence,” Dibb said.
Also read: World’s Growing Stockpile of Negative-Yielding Debt a Positive for Bitcoin, Say Analysts
2. Supply crunch
Large spot buyers, mostly institutions, have created a shortfall in bitcoin liquidity, pressuring prices to the higher side.
“Between Grayscale’s GBTC trust, Microstrategy and the influx of other large spot buyers, the supply of bitcoin is beginning to look more scarce,” Dibb said. Grayscale is owned by CoinDesk’s parent firm, Digital Currency Group.
Further, retail investors took direct custody of their coins by moving them from exchanges to their own wallets, adding to the drying up of sell-side liquidity. The total number of bitcoins held on cryptocurrency exchanges has fallen 9% to 2,404,788 BTC in the past two months, according to Glassnode data.
The decline in exchange balances is indicative of strong holding sentiment in the market.
3. Technical breakout
Bitcoin’s bullish bias strengthened following the cryptocurrency’s convincing break above $12,500 in the third week of October.
Back then, many analysts had pointed to $12,500 as the level to beat for the bulls. That’s because the cryptocurrency had declined sharply following a rejection near $12,500 in August.
“The real resistance level is around $12,500-ish, so, until a meaningful breakout above that level, nothing is done,” David Lifchitz, chief investment officer at ExoAlpha, told CoinDesk on Oct. 20.
Indeed, the eventual breakout above $12,500 looks to have invited stronger chart-driven buying pressure.
Bitcoin ended the third week of October above the key hurdle and remained bid in the following two weeks. Now support, at $12,500, hasn’t been tested since.
Also read: Billionaire Hedge Fund Investor Druckenmiller Says He Owns Bitcoin in CNBC Interview
At press time, bitcoin is changing hands near $15,390, representing a 113% year-to-date gain.
Disclosure: The author holds small positions in bitcoin and litecoin.
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Share this post: Blockchain struck society like a lightning storm on the plains. Fast and sudden. Over 10 years ago, a whitepaper was produced unveiling the technology and within seven years, families were discussing the topic over dinner, state legislators were passing bills, and CEOs were being asked for a “blockchain plan” by their Board. […]
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Blockchain struck society like a lightning storm on the plains. Fast and sudden. Over 10 years ago, a whitepaper was produced unveiling the technology and within seven years, families were discussing the topic over dinner, state legislators were passing bills, and CEOs were being asked for a “blockchain plan” by their Board. Some industries moved quickly to apply the capability, realize benefits, and progress networks from concept to production. Others continue to weigh the pros of transparency, digital contracts, and near real-time processing against the shift of working more closely with the value chain, applying new technology, and the integration with existing systems and data.
Fortunately, the toy industry has the opportunity to define how the collaboration, trust, and validation principles of blockchain will be applied at the asset, information and financial levels. The work done in other industries makes the path to benefits easier and offers lessons learned in building and presents the chance to leverage existing networks.
“Blockchain presents a unique framework to bring together suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, transporters, retailers and customers to deliver authentic products in a more efficient manner. The real question is will we see a full industry effort, or will we see smaller groups get together and collaborate?” – Paul Vitale, The Toy Association, Inc
Learn how industries are revolutionizing business with IBM Blockchain
Playing well together with blockchain
To illustrate some of the most likely industry applications of blockchain in the toy industry, let’s look through the lens of a fictitious toy manufacturer, ToyTime. ToyTime operates three divisions: child development, collectibles in The Artisan’s Line by ToyTime, and characters for electronic games. Distribution is primarily in the United States with international sourcing for raw materials. They distribute to national and local retailers, sell directly through a growing ecommerce channel, and contract with several independent distributors. End consumers and distributors praise ToyTime for their great customer service, especially the way they personally handle ordering and delivery challenges.
While ecommerce and retail sales have exceeded plan and ToyTime continues to invest in the channels, many opportunities to improve the entire business remain. Specific needs include:
- Improving settlement time, effort and amount
- Meeting the desire of their consumers to know a product is authentic and made in a socially responsible manner
- Providing more visibility into the availability of a product
While further understanding needs and determining the best approach, ToyTime has uncovered other companies that have been addressing similar situations and already started looking at how blockchain can be a catalyst for change. Let’s explore a few scenarios and identify what is being done in similar industries using blockchain.
Faster and more accurate settlement
Settlement for ToyTime officially begins upon receipt from a supplier and upon receipt by a customer. However, settlement starts much sooner than when it is time to send or receive funds. Most of the incoming and fulfilment orders are governed by a contract. Each contract can be unique and as a result, many people are involved in disputes on over/short/damaged/time delayed orders. Sometimes the disputes remain open for months which can leave a large amount of accounts open requiring a significant amount of time by the finance department to determine the correct amount due.
Blockchain moment #1: Can ToyTime encode the terms of the contract into a digital smart contract and based upon receipt and tolerance of over/short/damaged, pay and be paid at the agreed time and amount while providing the facts of the product movement onto a shared ledger for faster resolution?
Parallel situation: Today, major appliance providers have been working with a notable national chain order-to-cash process to drive down the number of disputes, resolution time, and dollars in question. Separately, ToyTime, like other major companies, could expedite their supplier onboarding process, lower their cost to maintain supplier information, and reduce supplier data errors with the use of the Trust Your Supplier solution. In fact, some companies are moving every one of their suppliers into a blockchain solution with support from SAP Ariba.
Spotlight fraud, recall with confidence
ToyTime’s customers and consumers want to know the authenticity of the product. ToyTime wants to protect their intellectual property and take swift irrefutable action against illegal reproductions. Also, should a situation arise where they must do a recall due to a faulty part, raw material, packaging, or any other reason, ToyTime and the ecosystem want to move quickly and efficiently to minimize any risk of harm.
Blockchain moment #2: Can ToyTime digitize and share the journey from raw material to customer’s hands and, when necessary, provide a rapid way to determine where products are located for recall?
Parallel situations: The mining industry has been working on conflict mineral blockchain efforts for a couple years. The ability now exists to track resources through the supply chain capturing each event and the critical data to validate and verify authenticity. The items not identified in the network are then known as not authentic allowing downstream buyers to make informed decisions. The emergence of digital twins and QR code use have helped to tell a product’s story, authenticity, and journey to the consumer. For recalls, Walmart’s blockchain learnings can be shared across industries. When conducting a trace on leafy green vegetables, identification of the product’s origin dropped from nearly seven days down to 2.2 seconds with blockchain. This allows for faster recall execution and consumer notification in the event of a foodborne illness threat.
Improve inventory levels
In recent corporate earnings reports, the word conservative has been used to describe inventory levels. What is conservative in a period where supply chains have been greatly disrupted due to demand swings? ToyTime has had difficulty ensuring supply and therefore is pushing out delivery dates and reallocating product using their best analytics tools with the data they have in-house.
Blockchain moment #3: How can ToyTime understand material and finished goods inventories up and downstream while also seeing sales information to best match demand and supply?
Parallel situations: Today large consumer products companies are tracking the ocean journey of their materials and finished goods using blockchain. A large distributor has also used blockchain and sensors in moving inventory downstream and adjusting transportation and ordering levels based on up to the minute inventory levels. Over time, the analytics on blockchain data unveiled an opportunity to reduce one shipment per week while maintaining stock levels.
Sharing your toys
Companies like ToyTime see the value that blockchain can play as they look for next generation’s solutions. Getting started involves making sure the return on investment is clear for all participants, the identification of the critical data can be shared, and a methodology can be followed to bring the formation and expansion of the network.
As the toy industry looks ahead, how will large and small retailers, suppliers, regulatory agencies, associations, testing agencies, financial institutions come together to improve customer experience, lower costs and risks? Toy industry leaders working together can unlock the benefits of blockchain for the entire industry.
How to get started with IBM Blockchain now
Read orginal here
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Cryptocurrency exchange Zebpay, which claims to have a user base of over 3 million users in India, is now exploring broader crypto market opportunities, such as digital collectibles. With its launch of a new marketplace called Dazzle, Zebpay has chosen to expand into the non-fungible token space. NFTs are unique but tradeable blockchain assets, which can be used […]
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Cryptocurrency exchange Zebpay, which claims to have a user base of over 3 million users in India, is now exploring broader crypto market opportunities, such as digital collectibles.
With its launch of a new marketplace called Dazzle, Zebpay has chosen to expand into the non-fungible token space. NFTs are unique but tradeable blockchain assets, which can be used to represent all manner of virtual and real-world goods.
NFTs are unlike cryptocurrencies in that they can carry unique metadata and vary in their degree of rarity. They are increasingly becoming popular for tokenizing markets as diverse as video game items, digital art and fantasy sports.
A Zebpay representative told Cointelegraph that the exchange is seeking to promote blockchain engagement beyond cryptocurrencies among India’s 5 million active crypto investors. In areas such as the digital art market, the exchange believes NFTs could offer Indian artists new opportunities to protect their digital copyrights and monetize their work. The representative further noted that the NFT global market has now hit $100 million in total value, and growing, making it a promising sector.
For now, the marketplace is launching with Zebpay’s native NFT, called Dazzle. Zebpay’s representative said that the exchange plans to distribute tokens to members through various programs:
“We’ll start with reward tokens offering zero membership or trading fees: some to our most loyal and active members, some as random airdrops, and some through fun contests. We probably will never sell them. We want to seed the ecosystem and let our members grow it organically. If they want to trade their NFTs, they can.”
As reported, a wide range of franchises — from top soccer clubs to Formula 1 — are increasingly recognizing branded digital collectibles, NFT auctions, and other blockchain-based ecosystems as efficient means to monetize fan engagement and construct markets for online viral phenomena and trends.
Blockchain developers such as Vitalik Buterin have long identified these diverse applications as a potential route for the technology to gain traction among more varied markets, beyond retail and professional digital asset trading.
First published here
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PRESS RELEASE. Cloudbet, the pioneering crypto casino and sportsbook, has officially launched an Argentina-focused service in response to the country’s surging interest in bitcoin and crypto gaming. The platform has unveiled a country-specific site and blog to help Argentinians learn more about the benefits of betting with cryptocurrency, as well as the features that make […]
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PRESS RELEASE. Cloudbet, the pioneering crypto casino and sportsbook, has officially launched an Argentina-focused service in response to the country’s surging interest in bitcoin and crypto gaming.
The platform has unveiled a country-specific site and blog to help Argentinians learn more about the benefits of betting with cryptocurrency, as well as the features that make Cloudbet a trusted leader in the world of crypto gaming: the best sports odds, the highest betting limits, a state-of-the-art bitcoin casino and a welcome bonus worth up to 5 BTC. Adding to that are Cloudbet’s world-class 24/7 live chat customer support services – in Spanish – to better manage Argentine players’ inquiries.
The operator chose Argentina as the first South American locale in which to launch a local language service based on its analysis of search interest in crypto gaming and bitcoin purchases in five countries on the continent. Curiosity in crypto gaming has increased along with surging cryptocurrency ownership, as Argentinians seek a hedge against the devaluation of the peso amid stringent government capital controls.
“Given the intense interest, we think that now is the perfect time to dedicate more resources to help Argentinians realise the benefits of betting with crypto,” a Cloudbet spokesperson said. “We intend to give Argentinian players more support and more bonuses to utilise on upcoming events within our casino. Crypto enables us to offer features that traditional operators can’t.”
Founded in 2013, Cloudbet is one of the world’s longest established bitcoin betting operators, with a trusted legacy in safely storing player deposits and processing withdrawals seamlessly on an intuitive user interface. The site also accepts ethereum, bitcoin cash, and added three stable coins – USD Tether, USD Coin and Pax Gold – in recent months.
“We’ve noted that stablecoins are increasingly relevant in Argentina, where individuals are looking to protect the value of their assets from the peso’s devaluation,” Cloudbet’s spokesperson said. “We intend to add more coins that are specifically appropriate for this market.”
The operator relaunched its site in April to attract a more diverse audience and has introduced a swathe of bold new features including esports, politics betting, virtual sports and easy credit-card coin purchases.
Cloudbet grabbed the attention of industry observers in June with an ambitious English Premier League campaign, under which its sportsbook charged no margin on pre-match bets for all games left in the season. That allowed customers to access the fairest prices — and therefore the highest returns — in the market.
The “zero margin” campaign was an extension of Cloudbet’s long-standing “best odds” campaigns on sports including soccer, basketball and tennis.
“Argentine sports fans can be assured that best prices will be offered on the competitions that they care about,” the spokesperson said. “We’re talking about the best odds on match-ups in the Champions League, the Copa Libertadores, and in next year’s Copa America.”
The Cloudbet Story
Cloudbet is a proud pioneer of crypto betting. Born in 2013 with a trailblazing spirit, Cloudbet embraced blockchain technology to give players privacy and financial freedom like never before. Since then, we have taken over 10 million bets, earning a reputation as the most trusted and secure name in the crypto-gaming space.
We wrote our own rules and audaciously created an industry we are highly respected in. But that’s just the beginning. As always, it’s what comes next that really excites us. We keep innovating, delivering world firsts time and time again.
Opportunities are boundless, and with the same passion and ambition that has taken us to the top, Cloudbet will keep enhancing the entertainment experience for players around the world.
We’re here to raise the game.
Press Contact Email Address
media@cloudbet.com
Supporting Link
https://www.cloudbet.com
This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. 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 content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
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Atomix is a groundbreaking Fetch.ai powered decentralized finance lending platform. Atomix creates liquidity through the introduction of tokens evidencing security taken over real world assets, enabling efficient and flexible collateralized lending for Borrowers, whilst delivering returns for Lenders. Atomix is redefining liquidity. The system is made up of a real-world asset tokenisation system, Atomix lending […]
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Atomix is a groundbreaking Fetch.ai powered decentralized finance lending platform. Atomix creates liquidity through the introduction of tokens evidencing security taken over real world assets, enabling efficient and flexible collateralized lending for Borrowers, whilst delivering returns for Lenders.
Atomix is redefining liquidity. The system is made up of a real-world asset tokenisation system, Atomix lending protocol and governance system. The diagram below details the main components.
Atomix will acts as a bridge between collateralized lending against security over real world assets and tokenization. It will take security over real world assets for use as collateral and use tokenization to evidence that security. All whilst delivering liquidity to Borrowers and Lenders
Security over real-world assets used as collateral
Stablecoin loans are made and simultaneously collateralized upon the deposit of tokens evidencing first ranking security taken over real-world assets, including any income produced by those assets. The secured assets can be sold to recover capital which is returned to the protocol. The loans are over collateralized providing greater security. The collateral is stable with low volatility.
Income generation, liquidity and flexibility
Borrowers pay interest on their loans and this provides returns for lenders.
Borrowers can drawdown and repay some or all of their loan without notice.
Lenders can redeem instantly by withdrawing their deposit.
Transparency and trust
The smart contracts including the underlying asset values and loan details are readily available and verifiable. The protocol brings trust by ensuring at all times that the lending is secured against sufficient collateral.
The Atomix team has created a DeFi lending platform for tokenizing security over real world assets for use as collateral, enabling market participants to access liquidity through tokenization, whilst delivering efficient and flexible collateralized lending for Borrowers and returns for Lenders.
Atomix unlocks liquidity to traditionally illiquid assets reducing cost and friction. The diagram below details the process.
This document is a high level Litepaper describing the goals and system components.
xTokens
xTokens (such as xUSDT) are minted by the Atomix Lending Protocol and represent a lender’s deposit of stablecoins. xTokens are deflationary tokens that monotonically increase in value. When a lender deposits USDT, the system mints and transfers xUSDT to the lender in return. This xUSDT gradually increases in value over time so when the Lender returns the xUSDT to the system the Lender receives more USDT than they put in.
Atomix Collateral Tokens (ACT)
These tokens are minted by the Atomix Lending Protocol (ALP); 1 ACT will be minted to evidence all of the security taken over a borrower’s asset. This 1 ACT is infinitely divisible allowing borrowers to transfer all or part of the ACT token. The set of fractions of an ACT tokens minted in respect of a borrower’s asset are fungible with respect to each other. However, ACT minted in respect of one asset are not interchangeable with ACT minted in respect of a different assets.
Governance Tokens (ATMX)
These tokens are distributed to lenders who deposit USDT in the system. Confers on the holder the right to vote to govern the changes in the core protocol, product or feature roadmap, staffing and changes to protocol parameters.
Traditional lending platform currently have limited supply, limited access to credit markets and poor market liquidity (i.e.. limited secondary markets). Alongside this, they are cumbersome, inflexible and restrictive terms and the markets lack expediency and efficiency due to legacy technology
Atomix solves these problems by combining the positives of tokenization and collateralized lending over real-world assets. Atomix can thus deliver the positives of Defi lending and eliminates the negatives present in today’s traditional lending marketplace.
Join the conversation on our discord server
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Introducing Guto, our new Marketing Member for Hathor Network Hathor Labs is pleased to announce that our team has grown and we are adding Guto Martino as our Marketing Manager. As we get ready for 2021 with some big plans on our pipeline, Hathor believes that this is the right time to bring someone to […]
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Hathor Labs is pleased to announce that our team has grown and we are adding Guto Martino as our Marketing Manager.
As we get ready for 2021 with some big plans on our pipeline, Hathor believes that this is the right time to bring someone to guide our communication and our marketing strategy.
Guto will be responsible for leading the Hathor team on marketing decisions but also to deep dive into our communication strategy, marketing efforts, participations on AMAs and interviews.
Some of his duties as our Marketing Manager:
- Setting a “Tone of Voice” and a strategic pathway for the Hathor team to develop a consistent communication plan.
- Ensuring that our brand shines in and out of the blockchain/crypto space following our identity guidelines.
- Managing our communications channels, such as our institutional mailing list and social media channels.
- Running promotions and campaigns to help with brand awareness.
- Conduct internal and external research to understand how the Hathor team and our community could engage with other projects in the blockchain space.
- Working side by side with BlockUnify on a Community Strategy to combine our marketing and communications goals.
- Setting up a content creation team for Hathor and helping to establish our Community Rewards Program.
- Taking care of events be conducted by Hathor, such as conferences, monthly calls, hackathons and much more.
- Bringing potential partners to build and develop together on Hathor Network.
- Ensuring our company vision is aligned with our stakeholders, investors, advisors and especially with our community.
Having a linear relationship with our community is a primary goal for Hathor since the beginning, and Guto is here to ensure that we are bringing awareness to our milestones.
Hathor definitely had an exciting year in 2020. Our Mainnet went live in January together with fully-developed mobile and desktop wallets. At the same time, our community has grown more than 1000%, and we experienced a substantial hashrate increase on our blockchain.
For 2021, we intend to expand our team and to showcase what is being built using Hathor Network.
Some of our central focuses for next year are:
- Release of Nano Contracts tools,
- Interoperability by Side-DAGs,
- Large increase in the number of use cases and projects built on top of our network.
We believe that a strategic communication framework is essential to showcase to larger audiences what is happening on our network.
Guto is a Marketing Strategist and Creative Project Manager born in Brazil and since 2013 based in Berlin.
Since mid-2016 he has worked as a freelance Marketing Strategist for several companies, projects and organizations in the blockchain space, but also with startups and tech companies such as Soundcloud, betahaus and many others in the Berlin ecosystem.
Previously, his primary focus was on events and conferences as Dezentral (1Kx) and Data Natives and as a member of Berlin Blockchain Week communication team. He was also part of the Department of Decentralization (formerly known as ETHBerlin), where he took part in the production of the GörliCon and EthBerlinZwei.
Guto is also part of the NEAR Protocol Marketing Guild and is an active member of KarmaDAO. He is a longtime enthusiast of DAOs, decentralization, NFTs and, more than anything, crypto adoption.
Twitter — https://twitter.com/gutomartino
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/gutomartino/
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4 min read This year the US presidential election was fraught with a lot of anxiety and it is clearly reflected on the market. A raging pandemic caused a massive increase in mail voting numbers and for many Americans the election day came much earlier. Early voting was available weeks before the election day, depending […]
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4 min read
This year the US presidential election was fraught with a lot of anxiety and it is clearly reflected on the market. A raging pandemic caused a massive increase in mail voting numbers and for many Americans the election day came much earlier. Early voting was available weeks before the election day, depending on the state. The counting of all ballots held the election results unknown for several days after the official voting day, November 3, up until last weekend.
The outcome
According to the US election rules, the candidate has to receive 270 votes to win the election. As a preliminary result of the election race, Joe Biden won with a result of 290 votes. However, the final results will be announced on December 14, once the presidential electors of the Electoral College will turn in their votes. Moreover, Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, has not agreed with the election results and filed legal challenges disputing the election results and calling for votes recount.
The market
Though the final decision has not been settled yet, the markets have already reacted to Biden’s preliminary victory. The US dollar sharply decreased in price, while global stocks hit new highs on expectations for the US foreign policy reset: the trade policy under the new administration is expected to be less confrontational as Joe Biden seems to wish to repair ties with Europe and China. European stocks remain mostly on the rise also due to the news about the efficiency of the coronavirus vaccine that the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer released on Monday.
Crude Oil also seems to be climbing higher and the market volatility may continue since the election results are not finalized yet.
How to trade?
Times of uncertainty bring higher volatility to the markets and it creates more opportunity for traders, which both short-term and long-term traders may benefit from. However, it also increases the risks associated with trading, as the markets become more unpredictable. Stock and Forex traders may keep an eye on the market news in order to quickly adapt their strategy if the asset shows unfavorable performance. Traders may also utilize technical indicators to evaluate the asset performance.
The most important thing to remember is to utilize risk management strategies at all times. Setting investment limits and keeping a tight stop loss may help traders manage their capital and minimize risks.
Trade now
NOTE: This article is not an investment advice. Any references to historical price movements or levels is informational and based on external analysis and we do not warranty that any such movements or levels are likely to reoccur in the future.
In accordance with European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) requirements, binary and digital options trading is only available to clients categorized as professional clients.
GENERAL RISK WARNING
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.
85% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
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According to a new report, the depreciation of some currencies against the U.S. dollar is contributing to the declining international remittances. After touching an all-time high of $548 billion in 2019, the World Bank report now projects remittances to drop 7.2% in 2020 to $508 billion and a further decline of 7.5% to $470 billion […]
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According to a new report, the depreciation of some currencies against the U.S. dollar is contributing to the declining international remittances. After touching an all-time high of $548 billion in 2019, the World Bank report now projects remittances to drop 7.2% in 2020 to $508 billion and a further decline of 7.5% to $470 billion in 2021.
Volatile Currencies
In its Migration and Development Brief 33, the World Bank details how the Covid-19 induced currency depreciation has affected the flow of global remittances. In the brief, the authors point to the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the source currencies for remittances. Detailing how this has affected the flow of remittances from Russia, the report says:
The weakening of the ruble against the U.S. dollar, by over 26% since the beginning of 2020, has reduced remittances from Russia in U.S. dollar terms. Remittances to Central Asia have therefore declined significantly.
The World Bank data indeed projects that remittances sent from Europe and Central Asia will register the sharpest decline (globally) of 16% in 2020. On the other hand, remittance flows to Latin America, and the Caribbean are expected to decline by just 0.2% in 2020.
Still, the report identifies the other “foremost factors” driving this decline as the “weak economic growth and uncertainties around jobs” particularly in the case of the United States and European countries. For oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia however, it is the weak prices for the commodity that are driving down the flow of remittances.
Impact of Digital Remittances
Meanwhile, after detailing the impact of Covid-19 and the associated mobility restrictions, the World Bank report goes on to assert that formal recognition of “digital remittances” will help to keep funds flowing even in tough times. The report continues:
“Governments must support remittance infrastructure, including by recognizing remittance services as essential, reducing the burden of remittance fees on migrants, incentivizing digital money transfers, and mitigating factors that prevent customers or service providers of digital remittances from accessing banking services.”
Although the World Bank report fails to specifically identify cryptocurrencies as one of the digital remittances it is touting, studies and reports already show the increasing use of crypto assets when remitting by some migrant groups.
For instance, a news.Bitcoin.com report suggests that there is a growing use of cryptocurrencies as rails for remitting funds across borders. A different report also shows a marked growth in peer-to-peer trade volumes after countries imposed lockdown restrictions.
Covid-19 restrictions may have inadvertently increased the appeal of cryptocurrencies. The second wave of growing infections and the resultant restrictions will only reinforce their place in this new normal. As the World Bank has advised, countries can reduce the impact of such restrictions by embracing digital remittances.
Do you agree that digital remittances can halt the declining flow of funds? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
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German soccer club FC Bayern Munich, which plays in the country’s Bundesliga, is entering the world of blockchain-based fantasy soccer. The Ethereum blockchain-based fantasy soccer game Sorare, which Bayern joined this week, already counts over 100 participant clubs, including high-profile names such as Paris Saint-German, Juventus, PSG, and Atletico Madrid. FC Bayern Munich is itself no stranger to […]
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German soccer club FC Bayern Munich, which plays in the country’s Bundesliga, is entering the world of blockchain-based fantasy soccer.
The Ethereum blockchain-based fantasy soccer game Sorare, which Bayern joined this week, already counts over 100 participant clubs, including high-profile names such as Paris Saint-German, Juventus, PSG, and Atletico Madrid.
FC Bayern Munich is itself no stranger to collaborations with blockchain projects, having partnered last fall with Stryking Entertainment to produce digital collectibles of its players. These cards are both collectible and playable as part of a fantasy-league style challenge.
In announcing its Sorare deal to fans, FC Bayern Munich noted that the top 20 leagues in the world are now available on the gaming platform, which has become truly global.
Sorare works as a five-a-side soccer game. New players pick an initial squad of 10 blockchain-based player cards from which they create their tournament team.
As reported, Sorare also offers players the chance to buy and trade limited edition cards, whose higher score and value is determined by players’ real-life performance in soccer league tables and their rarity as digital collectibles.
According to Nonfungible, a ranking site for blockchain games and issuers of collectible, non-fungible tokens, Sorare is inching up the league tables and has been gaining popularity with the global gaming community.
As of press time, the platform is ranked third, with a weekly trading volume of roughly $243,000. However, in terms of all-time-sales, Sorare significantly trails behind Axie Infinity, which reports roughly triple the sales of the fantasy soccer market.
Sorare has recently launched in the United States, where the platform hopes to attract some of the 60 million American fantasy sports players.
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Altcoin traders continue to feel the pain as Bitcoin (BTC) gains, with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hitting new all-time lows. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and other sources shows that as of Nov. 10, BCH is worth less in BTC terms than ever before. Bitcoin Cash plunges to new BTC lows At press time, BCH/BTC traded at […]
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Altcoin traders continue to feel the pain as Bitcoin (BTC) gains, with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hitting new all-time lows.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets and other sources shows that as of Nov. 10, BCH is worth less in BTC terms than ever before.
Bitcoin Cash plunges to new BTC lows
At press time, BCH/BTC traded at 0.017 BTC, comfortably beating its previous record low of 0.0245 BTC seen in December 2018.
The hard fork of Bitcoin has seen little attention this year, as investors focused on Bitcoin and then the decentralized finance (DeFi) phenomenon. The announcement of another hard fork of the Bitcoin Cash network, set for Nov. 15, has done little to buoy the coin’s prospects, data shows.
In USD terms, Bitcoin Cash has spent the past three months fluctuating in a corridor between $230 and $280, while Bitcoin itself has increased by a third in value.
Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin proponents took a dim view of the upcoming hard fork, something which has sparked a familiar tussle between businesses opting to support or reject the resulting new coins.
“Hopefully this election drama will clear up before the next scheduled shitcoin drama: T minus 10 days to the next bcash fracture!” CasaHODL co-founder Jameson Lopp summarized on Twitter last week as the hard fork was confirmed.
Litecoin sees lowest ever weekly close
For Litecoin (LTC), price data shows a similar story. LTC/USD traded at 0.0038 BTC on Nov. 10, increasingly close to its extant bottom of 0.003 BTC from March 2017.
On the weekly chart, the pair printed its lowest close in history this month.
Noting the lack of performance by both Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash since PayPal confirmed that it would support both assets along with Bitcoin from 2021, one popular Twitter account summed up the mood among those who favor BTC.
“We think it’s a bad business decision and also morally and ethically bankrupt for @PayPal to allow retail customers to purchase BCH and LTC,” it wrote on Nov. 5.
“Many retail investors will be tricked with misleading copy like below into purchasing assets that are completely worthless. It’s not right.”
While some traders continue to forecast the return of “alt season” next year, prospects remain bleak for the near term, as Bitcoin’s market cap dominance has reached 64%, its highest since June.
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Following two years of pilot testing, a blockchain trade and financing platform for global agricultural trading has seen its commercial rollout from Swiss developer Cerealia SA. The launch follows extensive pre-launch trial implementation with firms from Algeria, Brazil, Dubai, Japan and Ukraine. In November 2018, Cointelegraph reported on the platform’s early use to conduct a […]
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Following two years of pilot testing, a blockchain trade and financing platform for global agricultural trading has seen its commercial rollout from Swiss developer Cerealia SA.
The launch follows extensive pre-launch trial implementation with firms from Algeria, Brazil, Dubai, Japan and Ukraine. In November 2018, Cointelegraph reported on the platform’s early use to conduct a pilot transaction of Black Sea wheat from the Russian port city of Novorossiysk.
Cerealia has told reporters that it has sought to address the need for a fast trading platform in the global Russian wheat market and to combine this with a more reliable, transparent and technologically sophisticated execution program. CEO Andrei Grigorov said:
“Traders can now be 100% certain they really did the trade, versus traditional over-the-phone brokerage. Instantly, they have digitally signed contracts and blockchain-registered records ‘forever.’”
As the world’s top wheat producer, transactions in the Russian market also include corn, barley, and other grains and vegetable oil trades. According to Cerealia, transaction volumes in the first week of launch are reaching up to 20,000 metric tons of grain.
Earlier this fall, world-leading agribusiness firms from the United States, France, China and the Netherlands launched a joint venture that will use blockchain technology to streamline logistics processes in the agricultural sector in Brazil. Between them, the commercial partners involved move around 550 million tons of grains and oilseeds per year.
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Not too long ago, the author of the controversial bitcoin stock-to-flow (S2FX) price model said that the model was “perfectly on track.” On Sunday, November 8, the S2FX creator known as “Plan B” reiterated his belief in the model and told his Twitter followers that he has “no doubt whatsoever” that the S2FX trend is […]
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Not too long ago, the author of the controversial bitcoin stock-to-flow (S2FX) price model said that the model was “perfectly on track.” On Sunday, November 8, the S2FX creator known as “Plan B” reiterated his belief in the model and told his Twitter followers that he has “no doubt whatsoever” that the S2FX trend is correct.
This weekend the stock-to-flow (S2FX) author dubbed “Plan B” tweeted about his model and how he still believes in the S2FX trend. Plan B’s popular editorial called “Modeling Bitcoin’s Value with Scarcity” has caught the attention of the community for quite some time. The current trend suggests that if BTC’s price follows the S2FX model it could be around $100k by December 2021.
Stock-to-flow, also known as S2F or S2FX for the most recent model, is a cryptocurrency technical analysis (TA) that leverages BTC’s “stock” and “flow.” “The ‘Stock-to-flow’ is a number that shows how many years, at the current production rate, are required to achieve the current stock. The higher the number, the higher the price,” explains the live chart tracking website with the stock-to-flow model applied to BTC’s current price.
During the first week of August, Plan B told his 148,000 Twitter followers that his model was “perfectly on track.” This past Sunday, Plan B doubled down on his words and told the crypto community that he has zero doubts about his model and he wholeheartedly believes in S2FX.
“People ask if I still believe in my model,” Plan B tweeted. “To be clear: I have no doubt whatsoever that bitcoin S2FX is correct and bitcoin will tap $100K-288K before [December] 2021. In fact, I have new data that confirms the supply shortage is real. IMO 2021 will be spectacular,” the analyst added.
Following Plan B’s statements, a person replied to his tweet and said: “What is your skin in the game? You’re anonymous. If your model fails you can just delete Twitter and disappear.” The anonymous analyst responded and said that his anonymity makes S2FX more appealing.
“You don’t seem to understand,” the S2FX author replied. “One of the reasons for me to be anonymous is that I do not want you to trust me (based on my credentials), I want you to verify everything I say, and make your own conclusion. Also, I might go dark when my model succeeds, not fails. Few understand.”
A few other Twitter users said that they loved Plan B’s confidence and thanked him for his contributions. Despite the fact that there’s a number of cryptocurrency proponents and analysts who don’t believe in the S2FX model, a great number of enthusiasts think it will come to fruition.
“If the history of Bitcoin repeats itself,” one fan tweeted. “Bitcoin [will] overshoot and top at around $335k. – in this perfect parallel channel. Hello FOMO. [Four] year period between tops. “Take profit at $335k/2 = $165k which is the target according to ‘stock to flow model,’” the individual added.
What do you think about Plan B’s confidence in the S2FX model? Do you think it could align? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Plan B, digitalik.net/btc/, Twitter,
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
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One of yearn.finance’s core tenets is downside mitigated savings accounts. Thus far we have focused on lossless strategies, while the upside is potentially less, the downside is mitigated. This however leaves a lot of desirable opportunities unavailable to vaults. Lets go through an example; lets assume the current best opportunity for DAI is at 10%, […]
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One of yearn.finance’s core tenets is downside mitigated savings accounts. Thus far we have focused on lossless strategies, while the upside is potentially less, the downside is mitigated. This however leaves a lot of desirable opportunities unavailable to vaults.
Lets go through an example; lets assume the current best opportunity for DAI is at 10%, however if we did DAI:ETH we could be earning 20%. This is not a strategy yearn would have considered, since it adds a variable to DAI, namely ETH’s price volatility. If we take 1,000 DAI and convert it to 500 DAI : 500 ETH, and ETH price decreases by 10%, we would have < 1,000 DAI.
What if we could offset any potential price decline in ETH? Our goal would be to mitigate our ETH exposure, while the increased interest minus cost of mitigating such exposure is still greater than the original opportunity. Using the example above 20%-<hedge cost> greater than 10%.
This offset of losses is called hedging your risk. Lets first look at how we would do this with a futures contract, in the example above we bought 500 DAI worth of ETH, for simplicity sake, lets say that’s 1 ETH. We would like to earn yield with the ETH for 4 weeks. We agree with Alice that we will give her 1 ETH in 4 weeks if she gives us 500 DAI. Alice believes the price will go up, so being able to buy ETH for cheaper than market price in 4 weeks is a good deal for Alice. After 4 weeks, the futures contract is settled, 1 ETH is given to Alice, and Alice gives us 500 DAI. We have our 1,000 DAI and Alice has 1 ETH.
A futures market settles the underlying asset (ETH in the above example) at a future determined date. This is one mechanism we could use.
Using the above example, lets say ETH increased to 1,000 DAI. Alice is happy, she made 500 DAI profit, however, if we did not do a futures contract, we could give that 500 DAI profit to our LPs, further increasing their yield. So what if we wanted the option to be able to sell it to Alice in 4 weeks, but we didn’t necessarily want to do it after 4 weeks passed?
For this, we can purchase an “option”, just as the word says, it is the option to execute a contract (like a future). This would work exactly the same as above, however this exposes Alice to a potential downside (since what rational actor would only buy something if it would not make them profit?), so Alice charges a premium, she charges us 10 DAI for the option (right) to be able to sell her 1 ETH in 4 weeks for 500 DAI. If however in 4 weeks the price of DAI is greater than 500, we can simply not execute the contract.
Assuming the price went up, the LPs made more profit, assuming the price stayed the same, LPs made 20%-10 DAI, assuming the price was less then we could execute the option and have 500 DAI.
In the above examples, there is a lot of “micro management”, prices need to be compares continuously and checks on when to execute specific options/futures. What if we could simplify this a bit more? To do so, we can use Options settled/denominated in DAI
Options allow us to offset the “loss” part. So looking at our above example again, lets say the price of ETH decreased to 400 DAI. If our agreement with Alice was a Binary Option settled in DAI, then instead of us giving her the 1 ETH, and she giving us 500 DAI, Alice gives us 100 DAI (that is what her loss would have been). This means the underlying asset is not settled, but instead the profit portion is. So at this point, the pool is 600 DAI : 1 ETH (400 DAI). While the net result is the same, this required a lot less steps. Lets consider that the binary option cost us 10 DAI, if ETH increased, we would have 500 DAI : 1 ETH (600 DAI) = 500+600–10, if the price of ETH decreased and we executed our option, we would have 500 DAI : 1 ETH (400 DAI) + 100 DAI (Alice) = 500 + 400 + 100–10.
This allows us to keep our position neutral, while being able to enjoy optimized yields. An important note here is options pricing. Lets say the option costs 10 DAI for every 1 ETH. That’s 10 DAI over 500, or 7.3% every 4 weeks, so the option pricing here becomes incredibly important.
Next we need to understand option pricing, open interest, and strike variance, but I will cover those in a next post when we discuss the changes/modifications we have been proposing.
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Bitcoin (BTC) is continuing to show strong momentum even after a major rally. Key data points show that the uptrend has likely been fueled by smart money in recent months. This means retail or mainstream investors have been largely on the sidelines as BTC price surpassed $15,000 this month. In 2017, when the price of […]
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Bitcoin (BTC) is continuing to show strong momentum even after a major rally. Key data points show that the uptrend has likely been fueled by smart money in recent months. This means retail or mainstream investors have been largely on the sidelines as BTC price surpassed $15,000 this month.
In 2017, when the price of Bitcoin hit an all-time high at $20,000, the retail demand was at its peak. Google Trends data soared, mainstream media coverage noticeably increased, and spot exchange volumes exploded across major markets, especially in South Korea and Japan.
This time, the Google Trends interest is relatively low for the keyword “Bitcoin” while on-chain data shows smart money is accumulating BTC.
High-net-worth investors are buying Bitcoin
Moreover, according to on-chain analyst Willy Woo, it has been mostly high-net-worth investors who have been purchasing Bitcoin.
When whales buy Bitcoin, they mostly facilitate the deals through the over-the-counter (OTC) market. Over time, spot and derivatives markets trail the OTC market as whales lead the upsurge. Woo said:
“Who has been buying this rally? It’s smart money… High Net Worth Individuals. You can see the average transaction value between investors taking a big jump upwards. OTC desks are seeing this too. Bitcoin is still in it’s stealth phase of its bull run.”
The trend of whales frontrunning retail investors is optimistic because it shows Bitcoin is still in its nascent bull phase. Large capital from new retail and mainstream investors is yet to enter the cryptocurrency market.
Another Glassnode metrics paints a similar trend. The number of Bitcoin addresses holding more than 100 BTC hit a seven-month high at 16,271.
New money is pouring in
Whales consistently buying Bitcoin over the past few months is optimistic in itself. But, Woo emphasized that the number of new whales has also increased.
If the number of addresses containing large amounts of Bitcoin increases, analysts consider it as an overall spike in new whales.
The rise in more high-net-worth individuals accumulating Bitcoin coincides with the start of the recent institutional frenzy around BTC.
Following Square’s BTC purchase worth $50 million, the number of high-net-worth investors in the Bitcoin market noticeably increased. Woo explained:
“Best of all we are not just seeing smart money flow in, it’s NEW smart money. Orange line is the rate of new investors coming in per hour previously unseen before on the blockchain. It’s seriously bullish.”
Google Trends data shows relatively low retail interest
Google Trends data is indicating a similar narrative as on-chain data points. The search volume for the keyword “Bitcoin” is currently less than 10% compared to the 2017 top.
Nevertheless, while the search volume for Bitcoin remains low, there is a particularly high interest coming from states like Hawaii, California, Nevada and Washington.
Interestingly, California and Hawaii rank as the third and fourth highest in per capita income by state in 2020.
Moreover, San Jose/San Francisco in California i.e. Silicon Valley is ranked as the top metro region for Bitcoin interest. Silicon Valley is, of course, home to many high-net-worth investors and entrepreneurs.
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The hash power of the Bitcoin (BTC) network has jumped by roughly 30% over the past 24 hours, which if sustained, suggestsg a major difficulty adjustment may soon be incoming. According to Coinwarz, Bitcoin’s hash rate currently sits at 157.5 exahashes per second (EX/s) after briefly pushing above 160 EH/s. As of this writing, BTC […]
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The hash power of the Bitcoin (BTC) network has jumped by roughly 30% over the past 24 hours, which if sustained, suggestsg a major difficulty adjustment may soon be incoming.
According to Coinwarz, Bitcoin’s hash rate currently sits at 157.5 exahashes per second (EX/s) after briefly pushing above 160 EH/s. As of this writing, BTC hash power has increased by 42% in two days.
The spike follows a sharp decline in hash power in late October, which many analysts attributed to the end of the rainy season in the Chinese mining hub of Sichuan.
The province’s abundant and cheap hydroelectric power is estimated to attract around 80% of Chinese miners during the wet season. In December, CoinShares estimated that Sichuan accounted for 54% of global mining activity.
Quantum Economics analyst Jason Deane speculated that the sudden increase in Bitcoin hash power could be a sign that many Chinese miners have completed their migration from Sichuan and restored operations in other local mining hubs such as Xinjian and Inner Mongolia.
Whoa! big jump in #bitcoin hash rate over last 10 hours (+29.7% trough to peak) Large number of machines just came online somewhere, relocated Sichuan region miners possibly? pic.twitter.com/UKahgQ37Tm
— Jason Deane (@JasonADeane) November 9, 2020
The sudden spike in mining activity suggests the network is likely to produce another significant difficulty adjustment.
A major upward adjustment would come at the chagrin of non-Chinese miners who have been enjoying boosted profits after October’s apparent migration from Sichuan resulted in a 16% negative difficulty adjustment — the second-largest downwards adjustment in Bitcoin’s history.
Earlier this week, the world’s largest generator of hydroelectric power for the private-sector, Russian firm En+ Group, announced it would be launching a cryptocurrency mining venture in partnership with local company, BitRiver.
First published here
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The privacy-centric cryptocurrency network Grin (GRIN) has been the victim of a 51% attack according to a number of reports. Allegedly an unknown entity gained control of over 57% of the network hashrate on Saturday. According to the Grin website, the team is recommending people wait for “extra confirmations on transactions for payment finality.” On […]
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The privacy-centric cryptocurrency network Grin (GRIN) has been the victim of a 51% attack according to a number of reports. Allegedly an unknown entity gained control of over 57% of the network hashrate on Saturday. According to the Grin website, the team is recommending people wait for “extra confirmations on transactions for payment finality.”
On November 7, 2020, a mining pool dedicated to the Grin (GRIN) network informed the cryptocurrency community that the blockchain was under attack. “Grin network is under [a] 51% attack,” the mining pool called “2miners” tweeted. “Payouts are stopped. Please mine at your own risk only because the new blocks could be rejected,” the pool operator added.
According to the official website at grin.mw, the development team has a warning at the bottom of the site that is still up on Monday, November 9.
“Important notice,” the web portal’s warning reads. “The Grin network hashrate has increased considerably over a short period of time. Notably, this coincides with the Nicehash rate doubling in this time with well over 50% of the network hashrate currently outside of known pools. Considering these circumstances it is wise to wait for extra confirmations on transactions for payment finality.”
Grin Network Is Under the 51% Attack!
Payouts are stopped. Please mine at your own risk only because the new blocks could be rejected.@grincouncil @grin_hub @Hotbit_news @Poloniex @kucoincom @gateio_info @CoinBene pic.twitter.com/6seDSRe8Qw
— 2Miners (@pool2miners) November 8, 2020
At the time of publication, an unknown miner controls 58.1% of the Grin network’s hashrate. Statistics also show that at approximately 6:17 p.m. (EST) the unknown entity reorganized a single block at height 0000ada4. The mining pool 2miners who tweeted about the incident have around 24.5% of the global Grin hashrate today.
This is followed by Sparkpool, F2pool, Grinmint, and other small miners pointing hash at the network. If a mining entity controls more than 51% of a cryptocurrency network, the attacker can potentially reorganize blocks and invalidate transactions.
Ethereum Classic (ETC) has been notorious for getting 51% attacked on various occasions, alongside this the blockchain Bitcoin Gold (BTG) has also been 51% a few times. Much of the blame on all of these attacks have been cast at the Nicehash firm, a cloud mining operation that allows users to rent hashrate.
Currently, the price of grin is trading for $0.233 per coin, and there’s $3.4 million in global trade volume. The price of grin (GRIN) has lost 2.9% during the last 24 hours of trading. Most of the slide is due to the entire market downturn, as the 51% attack threat hasn’t really affected the price much at all this past weekend.
What do you think about the Grin network getting 51% attacked and the unknown miner that controls 58% of the network today? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
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A former Microsoft engineer has been sentenced to nine years for stealing more than $10 million in digital value from his past employer in the form of “currency stored value” (CSV) including gift cards. Volodymyr Kvashuk, a 26-year-old Ukrainian citizen residing in Washington, used the accounts and identities of his fellow employees to steal and […]
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A former Microsoft engineer has been sentenced to nine years for stealing more than $10 million in digital value from his past employer in the form of “currency stored value” (CSV) including gift cards.
Volodymyr Kvashuk, a 26-year-old Ukrainian citizen residing in Washington, used the accounts and identities of his fellow employees to steal and then sell the CSV — making it appear as though his co-workers were responsible for the fraud.
Kvashuk also used a Bitcoin (BTC) mixing service to further obfuscate the paper trail, telling the Internal Revenue Service that the $2.8 million worth of crypto that passed through his accounts gifts had been sent from a relative. According to the United States Departent of Justice:
“Over the seven months of KVASHUK’s illegal activity, approximately $2.8 million in Bitcoin were transferred to his bank and investment accounts. KVASHUK then filed fake tax return forms, claiming the Bitcoin had been a gift from a relative.”
Kvashuk worked at Microsoft from August 2016 until being fired in June 2018.
According to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) special agent Ryan Korner, the sentencing is “the nation’s first Bitcoin case that has a tax component to it.” Korner asserted the sentencing highlights the increasing sophistication of the agency’s criminal division in identifying unreported crypto asset transactions:
“Simply put, today’s sentencing proves you cannot steal money via the Internet and think that Bitcoin is going to hide your criminal behaviors.”
Brian Moran of the U.S. Attorney’s Office said: “Stealing from your employer is bad enough, but stealing and making it appear that your colleagues are to blame widens the damage beyond dollars and cents.”
Kvushuk has been found guilty of 18 federal felonies including six counts of money laundering and two counts of filing false tax returns. The Ukrainian used the stolen funds to purchase a $1.6 million lake-front home and $160,000 Tesla vehicle.
Tax evasion charges have been leveled at numerous criminal schemes throughout U.S. history. Prohibition-era gangster boss Al Capone famously spent seven years in federal prison from 1931 after being found guilty of evading taxes.
First published here
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The Index Coop was launched on October 6th by DeFi Pulse and Set Protocol, two of the top teams in the Ethereum ecosystem. The Index Coop is a collective aimed at creating and maintaining the best crypto indices on the market. The coop creates crypto ETPs (exchange traded products) that help users get broad exposure […]
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The Index Coop was launched on October 6th by DeFi Pulse and Set Protocol, two of the top teams in the Ethereum ecosystem. The Index Coop is a collective aimed at creating and maintaining the best crypto indices on the market. The coop creates crypto ETPs (exchange traded products) that help users get broad exposure to different sectors or themes across crypto. As the first flagship product, Index has created the DeFi Pulse Index that provides broad DeFi exposure for its users by holding one token.
In our first month since launch, we have had amazing growth across the whole Ethereum ecosystem and cultivated an awesome community of passionate Coop members. We are excited to share all the progress we have made since we started just a month ago.
- The Secret Master Plan for the Index Coop was proposed by Set Protocol CEO Felix Feng with an additional update to the strategy from Coop member OverAnalyser.
- 1% of the INDEX token total supply was airdropped to previous DPI holders
- Yam.Finance bought $250,000 worth of DPI to hold in its treasury in one of the first DAO OTC deals. Then, they elected to use their DPI to farm INDEX to become Index Coop members
- Opyn launched calls and puts for DPI making it the first derivatives for an Index Coop product
- At a $15M market cap, DPI index controls ~0.5% of all DeFi governance tokens in circulation for our index ($3B combined market cap). This makes Index Coop the top holder of DeFi’s biggest tokens and the #4 largest holder of YFI excluding exchanges
- $24M of DPI/ETH liquidity staked to earn 9% of INDEXsupply over two months
- The first trustless rebalance occurred for the November rebalance. All trades for updating index composition are now handled by smart contracts
- A DPI product info page was launched at indexcoop.com/dpi.
- CoinGecko lists DPI in the top 100 DeFi tokens (#55 at time of writing)
- Bankless has started using DPI as a market indicator in their newsletter
Even at only one month old, the Index Coop community has grown and evolved towards a collective vision and ethos of working together to achieve common goals. We’ve created codes of conduct to create a safe environment for people to contribute, given each other the space to grow in new ways, discussed values as well as business, and had great debates on strategy for the Index Coop platform and our flagship product — the DeFi Pulse Index. Above all else we’ve made some really good memes!
- Over 800 members joined our discord during the first month of Index Coop. They are extremely active and discussions about governance, tokenomics, product strategy, and growth for the DPI and Index Coop happen daily
- We transformed from Owls 🦉 into Druids 🦉 🦅 🦑 🦁 🐗
- Working groups organically organized for Growth, Development, and Design. They each held several meetings over the month and made all the product updates listed above possible. Thanks you everyone ❤️
- We hosted two community calls for introductions and in-depth discussions
- A Code of Conduct was proposed by Coop member DarkForestCapital and approved with supermajority vote
- The first round of community grants was approved and distributed for a total of 7,460 INDEX (~47 ETH) to 23 members
- A community handbook of Index Coop was created and acts an entrypoint for new members to get involved that has been under constant update as we develop
- Over 50 discussion threads on our governance platform with input from a variety of Coop members
- DarkForestCapital analysed common community/governance problems and how Index Coop is managing them
- Coop members started writing vision and mission statements as well as a manifesto
We are just beginning and there is still so much farther left to go! If you’re curious to learn more about Index Coop or even what to become a Druid come join us on our Discord, Forum, Twitter, or Subreddit.
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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse thinks corporations converting cash to Bitcoin (BTC) could be making a costly mistake as a more environmentally-conscious Biden administration takes the White House in January. Garlinghouse tweeted Monday that the incoming president will be much tougher on climate change, requiring that all publicly-traded companies disclose their greenhouse-gas producing activities. He singled […]
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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse thinks corporations converting cash to Bitcoin (BTC) could be making a costly mistake as a more environmentally-conscious Biden administration takes the White House in January.
Garlinghouse tweeted Monday that the incoming president will be much tougher on climate change, requiring that all publicly-traded companies disclose their greenhouse-gas producing activities. He singled out Square as one company that “may want to pay attention” to new federal guidelines that could get rolled out as soon as Biden takes office.
Garlinghouse’s comments piggyback off an earlier tweet from NYT Politics, which outlined some of Biden’s proposed measures on climate change, including rejoining the Paris Agreement and signing executive orders to curb emissions. President Trump withdrew from the Paris accord in 2017 over allegations that the pact would harm the U.S. economy.
Square made headlines last month by adding 4,709 bitcoin to its balance sheet. At the time of the purchase, the newly acquired Bitcoin accounted for roughly 1% of the payment company’s available cash on hand.
In August, mid-cap technology company Microstrategy said it had made bitcoin its new reserve currency by purchasing $250 million of the digital asset. The business intelligence firm has since increased its holdings to 38,250 BTC — worth roughly $590 million at the time of writing.
Garlinghouse lauded Microstrategy’s crypto play in August but appears to have shifted his stance following the presidential election. Ripple’s “sustainability of money” narrative appears to gel with the concerns of the incoming Biden administration. It’s also used to showcase XRP’s supposed superiority over Bitcoin’s resource-draining proof-of-work consensus.
Ripple claims that, for every 1 million transactions, its XRP token could power 79,000 lightbulb hours compared with Bitcoin’s 4.51 billion lightbulb hours. The company claims XRP is 57,000 times more efficient than Bitcoin.
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Bitcoin’s long-waited bull run and the recent wave of corporate and institutional investors allocating significant portions of their reserves to Bitcoin (BTC) are all signs that the pace of crypto’s mainstreaming is rapidly accelerating: But has the path to mass adoption come at the cost of privacy and decentralization? Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering […]
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Bitcoin’s long-waited bull run and the recent wave of corporate and institutional investors allocating significant portions of their reserves to Bitcoin (BTC) are all signs that the pace of crypto’s mainstreaming is rapidly accelerating: But has the path to mass adoption come at the cost of privacy and decentralization?
Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering laws have forced the majority of cryptocurrency exchanges to become more transparent about who their users are, and those who refused have had to limit the jurisdictions in which they can offer services.
In order to operate legally in many countries, many exchanges have had no choice other than to abide by strict AML procedures, and aside from Monero (XMR), swathes of privacy coins have been delisted from most major exchanges.
Recently, regulators have begun to crack the whip and jurisdictions around the world continue to propagate further measures to ensure investors disclose their crypto holdings and pay taxes on their profits.
And this is all happening as the United States Department of Justice arrested the co-founder of BitMEX and the CFTC charged its owners with running an illegal crypto derivatives exchange.
Roughly a week later, the Financial Conduct Authority, the United Kingdom’s top regulatory watchdog, went as far as to ban investors from derivatives trading at all crypto exchanges.
All of these maneuvers are designed to force compliance on crypto service providers, and while they may eventually assist with furthering mass adoption, many crypto ideologues are looking for alternatives to press their case for financial self-sovereignty.
Decentralized exchanges may be the solution
A growing number of investors feel that centralized crypto exchanges essentially operate in the same manner as traditional banks. As a response to this, decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, 1inch, Curve Finance and Balancer grew in popularity throughout 2020.
For more sophisticated investors, decentralized exchanges offering derivatives trading have also become available. Similar to traditional derivatives, crypto exchanges offering the service essentially act as the broker, but the process is marginally different on decentralized exchanges. This is because they utilize smart contracts in place of a broker, and the derivatives contracts are settled when the contract terms have been met.
At the moment, Synthetix is one of the most popular decentralized derivatives exchanges, and in 2020, it saw its total value locked rise to $1 billion before a sharp sector-wide correction led to a drop in TVL and daily active users at the majority of DEXs.
The exchange allows users to create an instrument called a synthetic asset “Synth” that can track gold, fiat and cryptocurrencies. It also allows the creation of assets that track the price of assets inversely.
Platform users can also stake the native SNX token as collateral in order to mint new synths, and similar to Uniswap, those who provide liquidity are rewarded by earning a portion of the exchange’s transaction fees.
Those familiar with DEXs like Uniswap will know that literally, anyone can list a new asset, which, in the case of derivatives, means any underlying asset can be transformed into a derivatives instrument.
These platforms allow users to trade derivatives without the need to deposit funds in any centralized platform, and they are not required to complete any KYC procedures.
While some investors shun KYC and tax compliance, this is a serious matter for crypto service providers. According to Molly Wintermute, an anonymous developer credited with founding Hegic DEX, compliance is more of an issue for centralized crypto service providers, not DEXs.
When asked how DEXs can remain compliant with financial regulators, Wintermute bluntly explained in a unique vernacular that:
“They can’t. this is a new layer of financial infrastructure, not an addition 2 z current financial system. it’s like TCP/IP or FTP, not jst a decentralized crypto exchange. U can’t stop z code or ban internet. unless public blockchain is open & permission-less it’s almost impossible 2 ban decentralized derivatives protocols.”
Wintermute further explained that decentralized derivatives are alluring to a particular subset of investors because:
“Non-custodial trading (protocol/people don’t hold funds as funds r allocated on smart contracts). Verified on-chain settlement (there’s no ability 2 cheaply manipul8 z derivatives & no close source trading algorithms that only exchange owners knows how 2 work/manipul8 with). deeper liquidity (new peer-to-pool/peer-to-contract model might offers lower spreads & better terms 4 users).”
According to Wintermute, the number of investors actually using DEXs is quite small, compared to the total number of crypto investors. To Wintermute, this means the FCA derivatives ban and the recent legal actions taken against BitMEX are completely irrelevant and non-applicable to decentralized finance protocols.
Wintermute said:
“Decentralized derivative is a part of small crypto world. there r 100M+ of crypto holders globally. around 5-10 of them might b actively trading crypto derivatives (globally). i don’t think that FCA ban has opened any new interesting opportunities. nothing has changed.”
After being pressed to elaborate on the chance that the SEC, FCA or other regulators might not attempt to shut down a platform such as Uniswap and arrest its founders, Wintermute said:
“They could probably arrest 1 or 2 CEOs like bitmex founders who have some shady things goin’ on internally but only 2 make everyone else feel fear. they can’t arrest everyone. also compare decentralized derivatives with crypto used 4 dealin’ drugs. these two things r 4from different sides of a spectrum. a toy in case of decentralized derivs & a gun in case of drugs dealers who r usin’ crypto. decentralized derivatives r not a crime.”
Wintermute also appeared to shake off the recent BitMEX scandal, sharply replying that:
“I don’t think that somebody gives a f— abt DeFi or DEXes. bitmex guys have so many shady things inside that this might b a great target 2 attack while DeFi / DEX protocols have 100% transparency & u can’t take a person 2 jail 4 buidlin’ a website that jst has numbers on it which r transparent 4 everyone else in z world.”
Ultimately, Wintermute believes that “Bakkt/CME & other wall s— guys r so angry that no one uses their s—– products that they now takin’ crypto entrepreneurs & tryin’ 2 send them 2 jail.”
The anonymous developer then explained that in her view, the “meta game is 2 ban every cool crypto products & try 2 cannibalize on their user base but with compliant s—– products.”
While there may be merit to some of Wintermute’s bold assertions, the arm of the law is quite long, and as we have seen with the now-defunct ICO era, bringing those who violate securities laws takes time.
In 2020, the total value locked in DeFi platforms has risen to $12.6 billion, and data from Dune Analytics shows that Uniswap processed $11.2 billion in volume in October. These massive figures are sure to catch the eye of U.S. and international regulators so it may only be a matter of time before legal action is taken against DEXs.
Decentralized exchanges are a testing ground for layer-two solutions
In addition to addressing privacy concerns and restoring decentralization to the crypto sector, DEXs also provide a sandbox for layer-two developers to play in. As has been thoroughly reported by Cointelegraph, scaling within the Ethereum network has been a persistent challenge.
When the network becomes congested during high demand periods, gas fees increase exponentially, and transaction speeds grind to a halt. With Ethereum 2.0 in perceptual “development,” a number of DEXs have begun to experiment with integrating layer-two solutions to provide users who are willing to forgo the Ethereum network with cheaper, faster options.
Project Serum is probably one of the better-known success stories for a non-Ethereum based DEX.
The decentralized derivatives-based project is built on the Solana blockchain instead of the default Ethereum network that most DEXs operate on, but it is also fully interoperable with ERC-20-based assets and Bitcoin.
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and his team are the brains behind Project Serum, and according to Bankman-Fried, the project is designed to circumvent the privacy and safety concerns of centralized exchanges by giving users a permissionless method to invest with leverage and swap assets.
The project also provides a cheaper alternative to the high gas fees and slow transaction speeds that frequently plague the Ethereum network during periods of high traffic.
Bankman-Fried said:
“In order to build a product capable of offering fast, cheap order matching, you need a chain with high throughput. This demand increases further for trading nonstandard markets and handling risk or liquidations. Serum chose to build on Solana because the chain has focused on a unique and powerful vision for scaling.”
According to Bankman-Fried, technical issues such as congestion and high fees can make or break an investor. Regarding high fees, he said:
“They’re fatal: You basically cannot have derivatives on Ethereum because of the scaling problems. To the extent that decentralized derivatives have growth opportunities, they’ll either be on a new L1, or on an L2.”
Bankman-Fried also agreed with Wintermute’s claim that hardly anyone is using DEXs, as “the vast majority of derivatives volume is on centralized exchanges,” but he suggested that in theory, “composability and self-custody” should be incentives for more users to join the movement.
One DEX to rule them all
Currently, investors have shifted their attention back to Bitcoin as the digital asset pursues a new all-time high, and data from Cointelegraph and Digital Assets Data indicate that DEX trading volume and daily active users continue to decline.
While this is likely disappointing to investors, it at least provides developers some quiet time to focus on properly integrating layer-two solutions to DeFi protocols.
The trend of major cryptocurrency exchanges becoming more centralized is unlikely to change anytime soon. This means that the first DEX to successfully provide a platform with low fees, privacy protections and a fast user-friendly interface will rule supreme once investors make the choice to invest in decentralized finance and decentralized derivatives again.
Read orginal here
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In the off-chain world, “Digital Identity” (D-ID) refers to the aggregated information that is collected by various parties and platforms when a user spends time and conducts activities online. Data such as a user’s search history, social media activity, transaction history, usernames and passwords, call records, SSN, date of birth, credit history, medical history, and […]
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In the off-chain world, “Digital Identity” (D-ID) refers to the aggregated information that is collected by various parties and platforms when a user spends time and conducts activities online. Data such as a user’s search history, social media activity, transaction history, usernames and passwords, call records, SSN, date of birth, credit history, medical history, and other important information routinely finds its way and is stored online, ultimately building a unique profile spread across multiple databases—each user’s Digital Identity.
Users have at their disposal a range of authentication and security tools to protect their data, but even the most secure online platforms can be hacked, leading to exposure of sensitive aspects of a user’s D-ID and putting them and the platforms at risk of identity theft and fraud. In fact, multiple studies have shown that hacked or leaked personal information is among the most frequently traded products on the dark web.
The way D-ID functions on a blockchain, by contrast, is at once more public and more private. Blockchains are decentralized, immutable ledgers (or databases), allowing for individuals to transact peer-to-peer while maintaining consensus concerning the ledger/data, ultimately creating a source of shared truth. Blockchains are public in the sense that any participant or even outsider can audit every transaction and address, and they’re private in the sense that, unless they’re explicitly permissioned, blockchains require no KYC (Know Your Customer) and users can participate anonymously with their blockchain addresses possessing little or no link to their off-chain identities.
One especially promising use case for blockchain technology is to improve the D-ID experience by applying the best features of blockchain technology to legacy D-ID systems. Though the architectural details vary, a blockchain-based D-ID solution would ideally allow users to selectively choose with whom and when they share their information, keep user information off of databases vulnerable to attack, allow users to better monetize their data, and better preserve user privacy. While this use case might seem trifling at first blush, it offers more than convenience and data security—by some estimates, digital identity and related industries could reach 3% of GDP by 2030.
This article will examine the risks and challenges associated with legacy D-ID implementations, break down how blockchain D-ID might solve them, and analyze four specific implementations relying on Chainlink oracles to connect personal information with the blockchain.
Current Flaws in D-ID
Though they can often go unnoticed to users who have come to accept them, the flaws of legacy D-ID systems are both systemic and pernicious. D-ID is a crucial element to making many of the online systems people rely on for everyday life work, but at nearly every step—from the collection, storage, and sale of data—D-ID is rife with security, privacy, and even ethical concerns. Ultimately, these problems can roughly be grouped into three categories: data monetization, data access, and data storage.
Data Monetization
An important part of D-ID is the data surreptitiously gathered by major internet platforms on a user’s behavior, habits, and biographical information. A search engine, for instance, might gather data about a user’s interests to tailor ads for them, or a social media site might sell information natively created by users to interested parties such as political campaigns. Because the details of these activities are often buried in terms-of-use agreements, users of these platforms ubiquitously and unwittingly enrich platforms with time spent ostensibly in leisure.
This process where users, by engaging in normal habits, unknowingly provide platforms with information that is then subsequently monetized is frequently referred to “free labor.” Proponents of free labor argue that this data monetization is a natural trade-off for access to what are often free services/platforms, and that they eventually benefit the user by allowing the platforms to grow faster and provide better user experiences.
However, free labor presents a host of ethical and privacy issues, often revolving around users being unclear about what data is being gathered, to whom it’s being sold, or where it’s being stored. Though some countries have attempted to place regulations on the data that can be collected by major platforms, free labor remains a rampant issue, with users all across the Internet unsure of what data is being gathered and what’s being done with it.
Data Access
Certain Internet platforms and services require a more complete D-ID profile to access than others. Social media sites may require just an email address (though they’ll subsequently build a profile on a user), while a lending service or a government agency might want a full financial or personal history before providing access and services through their portal. As a result, users are often forced to provide the same information about themselves over and over across different platforms. While the separation of databases may prevent a more catastrophic breach by isolating an attack, each database storing important user information ultimately increases the attack surface of a user’s data.
This puts users in a difficult position, having to choose between time-consuming processes and bureaucracy or storing their information for repeated use on databases that might potentially be vulnerable to attack. Additionally, this system also creates headaches for the platforms as well: government agencies might store redundant information across multiple servers, which leads to cost inefficiency, and other platforms might become more vulnerable to scams or theft as a result of user data leaks. In many instances, the platforms are ultimately the responsible parties for any financial losses associated with identity theft.
Data Security
As mentioned above, users frequently propagate information about themselves online, including financial information in order to make purchases or gain access to services. Access and security rarely go hand-in-hand, and the same holds true for D-ID—each website that stores information about a user presents a new attack vector through which their information might be stolen.
Given the level of the threat, one would expect that platforms would invest in superior security and privacy infrastructure. However, in spite of security efforts statistics indicate that data protection problems are getting worse, not better: upwards of 10% of the population is affected by identity theft every year, and that number is on the rise during the pandemic.
Blockchain-Based D-ID Solutions
Because of these flaws, D-ID is a space ripe for disruption from blockchain technology. By using blockchains to architect superior D-ID systems, many of the most glaring problems with D-ID can be solved and whole new use cases can be enabled.
The key features of a blockchain-based D-ID system would include: the ability for users to monetize the information they natively create and track how their information is being used; the ability to readily and easily share D-ID information; and the ability to keep that data secure. There are a range of unique approaches towards achieving these goals—including the potential of doing away with off-chain identities entirely—and each leverage blockchain in different ways.
DECO
One blockchain-based D-ID system is Chainlink’s privacy preserving oracle technology DECO—developed by Chainlink Labs Chief Scientist Ari Juels, researcher Fan Zhang, and others. While new D-ID storage solutions may alter how data is stored, the reality is that a lot of data is still stored in trusted databases. Many users/institutions may prefer the security of entrusting a high-security custodian to protect that data, especially governments and large enterprises.
DECO allows oracles to attest to the validity of information in trusted databases/systems without exposing it to the public or even the oracle itself using a cryptographic technique known as Zero Knowledge Proofs. Essentially, the oracle can join a user-initiated web session to attest to some requested information— possibly to verify someone’s identity, approve their financial information, or check key government records. Importantly, that data never leaves the secure, user-selected database, allowing a user to store their D-ID information in certain locations they trust and set up selective access, as opposed to propagating it to a variety of systems with weak guarantees on access control. This allows for a privacy-preserving plug-and-play option that combines the usability of legacy systems with the security of blockchain.
DECO’s privacy-preserving technology also allows for use cases that would otherwise have been impossible, such as big data medical studies. For years researchers have been excited about the potential of applying machine learning and computational analysis to large medical datasets, hoping to use these tools to make discoveries and breakthroughs that human analysis wouldn’t be able to find. However, the privacy and security concerns of patient data have long been a roadblock. DECO would allow researchers selective access to the data they need while complying with HIPA regulations and without putting that data at risk, potentially enabling a new era of medical research.
Bloom
Another example of a project using blockchain technology to enhance D-ID is Bloom, a decentralized identity protocol that allows users to claim, control, and selectively share their financial data while retaining full ownership via a decentralized architecture.
Bloom works by taking user-provided data and verifying each user’s identity, and then subsequently writing that data to the blockchain as an encrypted hash. This allows user information to be stored on a public ledger/source of truth while simultaneously maintaining privacy of it. It’s especially useful for financial information, which is one of Bloom’s core areas of focus—a recent blog post from Bloom laid out how Chainlink oracles help connect credit scores to DeFi protocols.
“Bloom started as a protocol using smart contracts and Ethereum addresses to uniquely identify individuals and enable them to claim, store, and share verified identity attributes, with the goal of decentralizing the credit bureau model,” says Isaac Patka, CTO of Bloom. “As the technology evolved we joined forces with the larger decentralized/self-sovereign identity community to develop open and interoperable standards for identifying users, issuing credentials, and exchanging information. The identity standards have now matured to the point that we can take this technology to market and drive global impact. We are excited to realize our original vision of extending financial inclusion, and using platforms like Chainlink to bridge the gap between the traditional and decentralized worlds.”
Unstoppable Domains
Unstoppable Domains is decentralized blockchain-based protocol for registering and hosting Internet domain names as non-fungible ERC721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Unstoppable Domains recently announced a new feature that uses Chainlink oracles to link Twitter users to specific domains, making it easy to identify and confirm a user’s public address based on their social media account. Additionally, users can send payments directly to the domains, bypassing often confusing Ethereum addresses for a superior UI/UX experience.
What makes this solution unique is that it can potentially bypass real-world information entirely. Twitter users can remain anonymous, but still have a named Internet domain linked to them that can send and receive blockchain-based payments. This allows for secure, highly intuitive transfer of value between parties whose identities are potentially entirely digital and don’t have to be stored in any centralized database.
Decentr
Decentr is a project that aims to provide a Web3 version of credit scores—what they call a “Personal Data Value” (PDV). Each user’s PDV would be sourced from a potential combination of social media activity, on-chain activity such as their total owned assets and history of repaying loans, and real-world data such as KYC/AML information. As discussed Decentr’s blog post, Chainlink oracles can supply this data to DeFi protocols across any blockchain, and users with high PDV values could potentially receive less collateralized or even collateral-free loans.
Like Unstoppable Domains, this approach not only finds a way to securely connect off-chain data to D-ID using blockchain, but also bolsters the blockchain identity experience by taking valuable on-chain data and using it to create a D-ID profile of users. Privacy-focused users could potentially bypass using real-world information all together, and instead build their PDV value solely from their on-chain metrics.
Conclusion
Current flaws with D-ID systems consistently and pervasively put users’ privacy and security at risk. However, these risks are currently perceived as a necessary tradeoff for accessing key day-to-day services and platforms. With the use of blockchain technology and Chainlink oracles, these risks can be mitigated by securely allowing platforms as-needed access to off-chain data, or by doing away with off-chain identity entirely in lieu of on-chain data verified by Chainlink oracle networks.
These developments will not just help secure users’ privacy and data security, but also has the potential to enable new use cases for private data that would otherwise have been impossible due to security and privacy concerns. Through using Chainlink oracles to connect on- and off-chain data to protocols and Web3 platforms, a new era for Digital Identity might just be beginning.
Learn More
If you want to learn more about the blockchain space, explore the Chainlink Blog for more content, including articles about Data Quality for DeFi, Dynamic NFTs, the Oracle Problem, Economic Rewards in Gaming, DeFi Composability, and much more.
If you’re a developer and want to connect your smart contract based application to off-chain data and infrastructure outside the blockchain, please reach out to us here or visit the developer documentation.
Website | Twitter | Reddit | YouTube | Telegram | Events | GitHub | Price Feeds | DeFi
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If you are a web developer, you might have asked yourself those questions already. There is a number of services that would help you out with that, for example github pages, netlify, or vercel but with Skynet and thanks to the recent release of the registry API, you can achieve the same goal and at […]
The post Automated deployments on Skynet. Automate build and deployment of your… | by Karol Wypchło | Nov, 2020 appeared first on Bitcointe.
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If you are a web developer, you might have asked yourself those questions already. There is a number of services that would help you out with that, for example github pages, netlify, or vercel but with Skynet and thanks to the recent release of the registry API, you can achieve the same goal and at the same time keep your web app decentralized and accessible from any Skynet portal.
This article, in the form of a step by step tutorial, will show you how to:
- automatically build and deploy your web application to a unique URL on every pull request change
- automatically build and deploy your web application on any change to the production branch and update your application public URL
After reading this post, you will be able to accomplish these things with just a single configuration file and some Handshake (HNS) domain setup.
You will find a live usage example in the final section of this article.
This article assumes you already have a web application that has its source code hosted on Github. In this example, we will be using a demo web app created with Create React App. You can do the same or use your existing web app.
We’ll use Github actions to set up our automation. Just to give you some background, Github actions is a way to compose a continuous integration workflow that executes on free Github runners.
As a first step, we will set up a most basic workflow that will run every time a pull request is opened or updated.
Please create a file in your code source “.github/workflows/deploy.yml” and add the following:
name: Deploy to Skyneton:
pull_request:jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-lateststeps:
— uses: actions/checkout@v2
— name: Use Node.js
uses: actions/setup-node@v1
with:
node-version: 14.x - name: Install dependencies
run: npm install - name: Run unit tests
run: npm test - name: Build
run: npm run build
This workflow contains 4 steps:
- it will set up Node 14 environment
- it will install project dependencies with
npm install - it will run unit tests with
npm test(optional, only if you have tests — if not you can delete this step) - it will build a project with
npm run build(depending on your configuration you might want to configure this accordingly)
Right now this is all that this action will do.
Testing time!
Create a new branch (please do not commit directly to your production branch, we want to open a pull request), commit and push code changes, and open a pull request on Github.
git checkout -b pull-request-workflow
git add .github/workflows/deploy.yml
git commit -m “initial version of the workflow”
git push — set-upstream origin pull-request-workflow
Once you open a pull request you will see that the “Deploy to Skynet” workflow has been started (you might need to refresh the page if it doesn’t show up immediately after creating the pull request). After some time, the orange indicator should change into a green checkmark — this is how we know the workflow has finished successfully.
Now it’s time to add a Deploy to Skynet Github action that will use the artifacts that were built with npm build in the last step of our workflow and deploy to Skynet.
Please edit “.github/workflows/deploy.yml” and append a new step to our setup:
— name: Deploy to Skynet
uses: kwypchlo/deploy-to-skynet-action@main
with:
upload-dir: build
github-token: $}
The upload-dir argument points to the directory that npm build populates with the production application build. Depending on your web application framework, you will need to configure the argument accordingly. This example uses Create React App and by default, the production build directory is build.
The github-token argument is populated with a secret GITHUB_TOKEN that Github creates automatically. It is needed for the action to access the Github API so it can create a comment on the pull request with the deployment details on success.
Now, your full “.github/workflows/deploy.yml” will look like this:
name: Deploy to Skyneton:
pull_request:jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-lateststeps:
— uses: actions/checkout@v2
— name: Use Node.js
uses: actions/setup-node@v1
with:
node-version: 14.x - name: Install dependencies
run: npm install - name: Run unit tests
run: npm test - name: Build
run: npm run build— name: Deploy to Skynet
uses: kwypchlo/deploy-to-skynet-action@main
with:
upload-dir: build
github-token: $}
Testing time!
Commit those changes and push the branch.
git add .github/workflows/deploy.yml
git commit -m “configure deploy to skynet action”
git push
This will trigger a new workflow job. After it is finished, you should receive a comment on your pull request that looks like this:
🎉 Congratulations! You have successfully deployed your application to Skynet. It has been built from the specific commit and you can verify that it works by visiting the URL from the comment.
In case something went wrong
If you have not received a comment on your pull request or the link is not working, there are a couple of possible reasons:
- your workflow failed for some reason before reaching the Deploy to Skynet action — please consult the job logs, maybe your unit tests failed or have not been set up correctly (you can delete that step from the workflow if you don’t have any tests)
- your `upload-dir` might be misconfigured — please make sure that the directory name you put in there is the directory that gets populated after running
npm build, you can check that by running this locally - you created a pull request from a fork of the repo to a forked repo — due to Github actions limitations, Github action run on pull requests from forks have read-only access to the Github API and are not allowed to create comments (you should have information about it in job logs if this is the case)
- siasky.net might be acting up, please visit the website and try to upload any file using the web interface — if you experience problems with that, then please report them to us on discord
In any case, you should start by checking the job logs for additional info.
By now you should have a workflow set up that will run on each new and updated pull request.
What it means is that every time you make some changes and open a pull request, you will be able to verify them straight from the link from a pull request comment. Every time it runs, it will create a new link to the deployment so you will also have access to the previous iterations.
This is very handy for specific purposes, for example, if you want to let the code reviewer verify your changes “live”. You might want to share the link with your project manager to make sure that the changes in the code reflect the requirements.
Up until now, we were building and deploying only within pull requests. You can however configure Github action workflow to also run every time you push anything to the “main” branch (that includes merging pull requests). This way, every time you make a production-ready change in your repository, the workflow will deploy a new version of the app based on the “main” branch.
The only thing we need to change in “.github/workflows/deploy.yml” is the “on” directive that should be extended with:
on:
pull_request:
push:
branches: [main]
Your full “.github/workflows/deploy.yml” file should look like this now:
name: Deploy to Skyneton:
pull_request:
push:
branches: [main]jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-lateststeps:
— uses: actions/checkout@v2
— name: Use Node.js
uses: actions/setup-node@v1
with:
node-version: 14.x - name: Install dependencies
run: npm install - name: Run unit tests
run: npm test - name: Build
run: npm run build— name: Deploy to Skynet
uses: kwypchlo/deploy-to-skynet-action@main
with:
upload-dir: build
github-token: $}
Testing time!
Commit those changes and push the branch.
git add .github/workflows/deploy.yml
git commit -m “run workflow on every push to main branch”
git push
We are not expecting anything new in particular right now yet because we are still on a custom branch, within a pull request. We are now ready though to merge the pull request. You can do so from the pull request interface on Github.
Merging a pull request should trigger a new workflow job. Unfortunately, since there is no pull request context anymore, our Github workflow will not be able to create a comment on the pull request with the deployment details after the job is finished. You will need to go to the “actions” tab manually to see your workflow running.
Once the workflow is finished, click the workflow name and drill down the logs to manually grab the deployment URL.
Since that deployment has been created from a “main” branch, we can assume that this is in fact a production, stable release and you can share that link with anyone as such.
Now, every time you push something to the “main” branch, it will build and deploy a new release with a new link. This is far from perfect if you want to update your application often. There is a way to remedy that though, please follow along with the next section.
In the Skynet 🤝 Handshake article, we described how to purchase and use a handshake domain to serve Skynet hosted content.
The main idea is, once you own a handshake domain like “my-example-webapp”, every time you deploy a new release, you can manually copy the new deployed release Skylink and update the handshake domain record with the new Skylink. This way, you could share a handshake domain Skynet link like https://my-example-webapp.hns.siasky.net and it would always point your users to the Skylink you have in the record.
This is great if you want to manually choose when you update your production website. If you however want to automate this process further, there is a way to do so!
Learning about Skynet registry
Before we dive into the code, please take a minute to read about the Skynet registry from the section below.
A couple of days ago, Sia released a new decentralized database called SkyDB built on top of a Skynet new registry API.
Skynet registry API allows users to store small pieces of information (like Skylinks) on hosts, secured with a private/public key pair. Only a person owning the private key can modify the corresponding registry entry but everyone who has the public key can access it and it is safe to share the public key since it comes with read-only access. Skynet registry API also requires a “datakey” which is something of an id of the entry — you can read more about the “datakey” in Skynet registry docs.
An example link that reads from the registry could be:
https://siasky.net/skynet/registry?publickey=ed25519%3A6eb6cb0f87776e40a8c2973da0bee060f9169c946be7f5ef9b94773e9bd2a0fc&datakey=79c05b4b67764ad99a7976a7d2fb1cfce4f196ea217ef0356af042cb5492bd5d
You can clearly distinguish the “publickey” and “datakey” parts in that URL:
- publickey:
ed25519%3A6eb6cb0f87776e40a8c2973da0bee060f9169c946be7f5ef9b94773e9bd2a0fc
datakey:
79c05b4b67764ad99a7976a7d2fb1cfce4f196ea217ef0356af042cb5492bd5d
Now, that we learned about “publickey” and “datakey”, we can form a skyns:// URI that we will need later. Just like a Skylink could be represented as sia://<skylink>, a registry entry can be represented as skyns://<publickey>/<datakey>. So the above example would look like:
skyns://ed25519%3A6eb6cb0f87776e40a8c2973da0bee060f9169c946be7f5ef9b94773e9bd2a0fc/79c05b4b67764ad99a7976a7d2fb1cfce4f196ea217ef0356af042cb5492bd5d
This notation of a registry entry will come in handy in just a moment.
Automating production release deployments with Handshake domains
Now that you’ve learned some basics about Skynet registry, we can proceed with the final step of our setup.
We can configure Deploy to Skynet action to update a registry entry with a new Skylink after each successful “main” branch deployment.
First, make sure that you are on a “main” branch and it’s up to date.
git checkout main
git pull
For the last time, we will edit “.github/workflows/deploy.yml” and configure a secret seed in Deploy to Skynet action:
— name: Deploy to Skynet
uses: kwypchlo/deploy-to-skynet-action@main
with:
upload-dir: build
github-token: $}
registry-seed: $}
Just to explain the expression used for “registry-seed” — it first makes sure that the event that triggered the job is “push” and the branch that it’s running against is “main”, only then it should assign the value of REGISTRY_SEED secret as “registry-seed”.
Your full “.github/workflows/deploy.yml” file should look like this now:
name: Deploy to Skyneton:
pull_request:
push:
branches: [main]jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-lateststeps:
— uses: actions/checkout@v2
— name: Use Node.js
uses: actions/setup-node@v1
with:
node-version: 14.x - name: Install dependencies
run: npm install - name: Run unit tests
run: npm test - name: Build
run: npm run build— name: Deploy to Skynet
uses: kwypchlo/deploy-to-skynet-action@main
with:
upload-dir: build
github-token: $}
registry-seed: $}
You will now need to go to your Github project settings and add a new secret called REGISTRY_SEED in the Secrets section. It has to be very secure and globally unique. You can use for example this website and pick one of the safe keys like “256-bit WEP Keys”.
Testing time!
Please commit and push your changes to the “main” branch.
git add .github/workflows/deploy.yml
git commit -m “assign registry-seed to update registry entry”
git push
A new workflow job will be triggered, please check the logs of Deploy to Skynet action once it succeeds. You should see a registry link in addition to the logs we were used to. This means that the registry entry has been created or updated and you can use this registry link to retrieve it.
This is my specific registry link that we can use to retrieve the registry entry. You can open it up to get an idea of what it contains.
https://siasky.net/skynet/registry?publickey=ed25519%3A8dba0c99a33e349bd8d85536171ef6f1f68a7f6c57ce7db9acfa9e2126463091&datakey=0f2381dca89efcc3d4d1d1b7efd663a0515be538e2a7c3bff01469961fc916be
The “data” key contains a hex-encoded Skylink that was just deployed. You can paste the “data” key-value into an online hex decoder to verify that.
What we can do now is form a skyns:// URI just like the one mentioned in the section above by extracting public key and datakey and putting them together as skyns://<publickey>/<datakey>.
Final URI should look like this:
skyns://ed25519%3A8dba0c99a33e349bd8d85536171ef6f1f68a7f6c57ce7db9acfa9e2126463091/0f2381dca89efcc3d4d1d1b7efd663a0515be538e2a7c3bff01469961fc916be
Now for the final part, you can go to your handshake domain configuration and replace what has been a static Skylink in the text entry, with our new skyns://<publickey>/<datakey> URI. After you submit your changes and the Handshake domain is synced (this can take a while), you will be able to access the recent “main” branch deployment from your handshake Skynet URL that looks like https://my-example-webapp.hns.siasky.net.
Once you verify that the domain has been synced, go ahead and change background color in your app and commit those changes to the “main” branch, push them and wait until the workflow succeeds. You should see the changes on https://my-example-webapp.hns.siasky.net immediately after! Now you can share that link with anyone and every time you push new changes, Deploy to Skynet action will take care of updating the registry for you and you will be able to enjoy almost instant updates to your app!
You can check a live implementation of the above workflow in the Note to Self app’s Github repository. The repository is configured to:
Complete Github workflow is available in build.yml.
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Call for Proposals in DeFi, Digital Sovereignty, or Financial Inclusion We’re looking to collaborate with innovative blockchain projects that address universal technical challenges, increase adoption, and develop public goods. The Call for Proposals builds upon our recent announcement of the DAI-ETC bridge to advance financial inclusion. It also advances the mission of ETC Labs to […]
The post Ethereum Classic Labs Announces. Call for Proposals in DeFi, Digital… | by Ethereum Classic Labs | Ethereum Classic Labs | Nov, 2020 appeared first on Bitcointe.
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Call for Proposals in DeFi, Digital Sovereignty, or Financial Inclusion
We’re looking to collaborate with innovative blockchain projects that address universal technical challenges, increase adoption, and develop public goods.
The Call for Proposals builds upon our recent announcement of the DAI-ETC bridge to advance financial inclusion. It also advances the mission of ETC Labs to build relevant, accessible, and high-quality technology; and to fulfill the promise of blockchain to improve people’s lives using Ethereum Classic and other public blockchains.
Projects must be open-source, early-stage or pre-launch, and committed to building on a public blockchain.
In this round of grants, we are particularly interested in:
- DeFi: platforms and solutions that increase access, security, liquidity, interoperability, including insurance, derivatives, and bridges.
- Digital Sovereignty: tools and solutions that enable user-controlled data and assets on the internet.
- Financial Inclusion: platforms, tools, and products that increase financial inclusion and adoption beyond existing communities with an emphasis on emerging and informal markets.
All funding will be granted on a rolling basis. To apply, click here. Make sure to fill out each field on the form with the most up to date and accurate information including a brief project summary, technical description, team bios, implementation and growth plan, risk analysis, and a link to your GitHub, code, or whitepaper.
For questions regarding the application process, qualifications, etc. please contact, jessica.s@etclabs.org. For press inquiries regarding ETC Labs grants program contact, kelsey.r@etclabs.org.
About Ethereum Classic Labs (ETC Labs):
The mission of ETC Labs is to build relevant, accessible, and high-quality technology, and to use that technology to create communities of value in a mature and regulated ecosystem. The ultimate goal is to fulfill the promise of blockchain to improve people’s lives using Ethereum Classic, one of the world’s major public blockchains. The ETC Labs team of experts also fosters partnerships with organizations and institutions to address fundamental challenges in developing and deploying this innovative technology. We fulfill the mission in three ways: the ETC Labs Accelerator, which invests in up to 25 blockchain projects annually that contribute to sustaining a robust ecosystem; strategic investments in innovative projects focused on economic and social development; and the Core Team, a team of experts and developers who maintain the Ethereum Classic blockchain and build key applications, solutions, and tools. For more information, visit etclabs.org.
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American billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller has changed course on Bitcoin, saying it has the potential to store value for future generations. Speaking on CNBC today, Druckenmiller said that, although he was still more heavily invested in gold than crypto, he had purchased at least some Bitcoin (BTC). He did not specify how much. “Bitcoin could be […]
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American billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller has changed course on Bitcoin, saying it has the potential to store value for future generations.
Speaking on CNBC today, Druckenmiller said that, although he was still more heavily invested in gold than crypto, he had purchased at least some Bitcoin (BTC). He did not specify how much.
“Bitcoin could be an asset class that has a lot of attraction as a store of value to both millennials and the new West Coast money — and, as you know, they got a lot of it,” said the billionaire. “It’s been around for 13 years and with each passing day it picks up more of its stabilization as a brand.”
To be fair, Bitcoin’s white paper came out on Halloween, 2018, and the genesis block was mined at the beginning of 2009. But Druckenmiller is new to all of this, so no need to attack him for his math. He continued to say he is more invested in gold than BTC:
“I own many many more times gold than I own Bitcoin. But frankly if the gold bet works, the Bitcoin bet will probably work better because it’s thinner, more illiquid and has a lot more beta to it.”
The former chairman and president of Duquesne Capital, Druckenmiller has a net worth of roughly $4.4 billion. His recent comments represent a change in the billionaire’s position on crypto. Though he invested in stablecoin project Basis in 2018, the investor claimed last year that BTC could never be a medium of exchange, given its volatility.
“I don’t think I’m a neanderthal, which is what I’ve been called when I’ve said I didn’t want to own Bitcoin,” he said at the time.
Druckenmiller has previously put forward gold as a safe haven asset to protect investors from fiat exposure, with countries like China seemingly eager to challenge the hegemony of the U.S. dollar.
First published here
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HackAtom V has come to an end. What an exciting journey we had! HackAtom V was the fifth edition of the Cosmos HackAtom series that we started back in 2017, right after the Cosmos public fundraiser. Unlike all the other in-person events, this hackathon was our first exclusively virtual event of its kind. Over 340 […]
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HackAtom V has come to an end. What an exciting journey we had!
HackAtom V was the fifth edition of the Cosmos HackAtom series that we started back in 2017, right after the Cosmos public fundraiser. Unlike all the other in-person events, this hackathon was our first exclusively virtual event of its kind. Over 340 participants from across the globe hacked remotely for two weeks. Teams utilized bleeding-edge technology such as the Cosmos SDK, IBC, Starport, Ethermint, CosmWasm, Agoric, and more from the Cosmos ecosystem, and have succeeded in building some amazing projects.
We want to thank the participating teams for taking the time to work on great projects and the judges, mentors, and the organizing team at Tendermint for putting together such an exciting and amazing event.
Time to meet the winners! 🥳
1st Place: 🥇 Osmosis 🥇
Osmosis is an on-chain generalized multi-token automated market maker and a self-balancing weighted portfolio built on the Cosmos SDK.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/osmosis-itn5vr
Github: https://github.com/c-osmosis
Demo: https://c-osmosis.com
2nd Place: 🥈 Quasar 🥈
Quasar is a lending/borrowing protocol in the form of CosmWasm contracts.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/quasar-q2wj7c
Github: https://github.com/quasar-protocol/quasar-cosmwasm
3rd Place: 🥉 NFT Marketplace 🥉
An NFT Marketplace on the blockchain for fungible and non-fungible tokens.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/nft-marketplace
Github:
Website: https://hackatom.blockscape.network/home
1st Place: 🥇 NFT Marketplace 🥇
An NFT Marketplace on the blockchain for fungible and non-fungible tokens.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/nft-marketplace
Github:
Website: https://hackatom.blockscape.network/home
2nd Place: 🥈 Flares 🥈
A payment network that supports multiple assets and multiple payment scenarios, such as games, dapps, DEX, DeFi, etc.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/flares
Github: https://github.com/wangfeiping/flares
3rd Place: 🥉 API Kit 🥉
A module that allows interactions with arbitrary APIs from your Cosmos app using a prebuilt Cosmos Hub module.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/cosmos20
Github: https://github.com/cbonoz/cosmos20
1st Place: 🥇 Clawback Account 🥇
Clawback Account with DeFi use cases such as wallet management and cashback reward adjustments.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/clawback-account-in-cosmwasm
Github: https://github.com/tomtau/hackatom
2nd Place: 🥈 Cosmos-DID 🥈
Decentralized Identifiers (DID) spec built on the Cosmos SDK using Starport.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/cosmos-did
Github: https://github.com/mingderwang/did
3rd Place: 🥉 Sophon 🥉
Smart contract built on CosmWasm that optimizes staking operations.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/sophon
Github: https://github.com/Ninja-Chain/sophon
1st Place: 🥇 Sampark 🥇
Sampark is a platform where users can endorse connections using images to showcase their work, memes, anger, or other cool images.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/sampark-32za4h
Github: https://github.com/3scava1i3r/HackAtom-V
2nd Place: 🥈 Affondra 🥈
Affondra is a blockchain application where users can sell their NFTs and earn affiliate rewards on a peer to peer marketplace.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/affondra
Github: https://github.com/EG-easy/affondra
Website: https://affondra.web.app/
In addition to having judges assess and select winners, we have also opened voting to the community for the Community Choice Award.
🎖 King of Cards🎖
King of Cards is a card game on the blockchain where users can design and sell cards.
Devpost: https://devpost.com/software/king-of-cards
Github: https://github.com/pallavi192k/King-of-Cards
HackAtom V would not have been possible without the help from numerous people and teams in our ecosystem.
A huge shoutout goes to the workshop creators, from teams like Regen Network, Tendermint, Agoric, Confio, IrisNet, Commercio, Persistence, and Interchain GmBH that have worked hard to demo and introduce Cosmos to a live, worldwide audience via workshops during HackAtom V.
Check out the workshops and demos from #HackAtomV on YouTube.
Our amazing team of mentors worked around the clock to assist everyone in developing and polishing their projects. They were present day-in-day-out on our #HackAtomV Discord channel, which made it feel like a live, in-person event. Mentors came from teams such as Chainsafe, Dokia Capital, Interchain Foundation, Tendermint, Paradigm, Informal, ShapeShift, 1confirmation, Interchain GmbH, Forbole, FreeFlix & CoCo, Persistence, Figment, Akash, Iqlusion, Confio, Regen Network, Commercio, IrisNet, Persistence, and Agoric.
We want to thank our judges, who took the time to carefully examine each submission, review the code, and assess the category in which these projects would fit best:
- Nick Tomaino, Founder/GP of 1Confirmation
- Erik Voorhees, a top serial Bitcoin advocate/entrepreneur, Founder of ShapeShift
- Billy Rennekamp, Grants Manager at Interchain Foundation
- Aurel Iancu, CEO at Dokia Capital
- Charlie Noyes, Partner at Paradigm Fund
- Brent Xu, Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships at Tendermint
- Aidan Hyman, Co-founder & CEO at ChainSafe Systems
- Ethan Buchman, CEO at Informal Systems, Co-founder of Cosmos & Tendermint & VP at Interchain Foundation
There were also internal teams at Tendermint who worked hard behind the scenes to make this event possible, which consisted of efforts from the Engineering, Operations, Marketing, and Design teams. Tendermint was responsible for deploying the hubs, building the tools and infrastructure, designing the website, promoting HackAtom, and organizing the event by coordinating with each of the stakeholders.
Last but not least, a big thank you goes out to the Interchain Foundation for generously sponsoring the prizes of HackAtom V.
We hope that the participating teams will continue working on the projects that they have started during this HackAtom event, and that we’ll meet again in Cosmos! Stay tuned for more HackAtom V news, including a Winners’ Spotlight blog post.
There’s only one destination! To the Cosmos! 🚀
Read the original article here
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Economist Nouriel Roubini, also known as “Dr. Doom,” has admitted that bitcoin may be a store of value. Roubini sees a “big revolution” coming in the next three years due to central banks launching their own digital currencies. Nouriel Roubini Sees Store of Value in Bitcoin After years of publicly mocking and ridiculing bitcoin, Nouriel […]
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Economist Nouriel Roubini, also known as “Dr. Doom,” has admitted that bitcoin may be a store of value. Roubini sees a “big revolution” coming in the next three years due to central banks launching their own digital currencies.
Nouriel Roubini Sees Store of Value in Bitcoin
After years of publicly mocking and ridiculing bitcoin, Nouriel Roubini has admitted that bitcoin may be a partial store of value.
Roubini teaches at New York University’s Stern School of Business and has his own economic consulting firm called Roubini Macro Associates. Famed for predicting the housing bubble crash of 2007-2008, his gloomy predictions have earned him the nickname “Dr. Doom” in the media.
Dr. Doom has been a long-standing critic of bitcoin. In a Senate hearing in October 2018, he called cryptocurrencies “the mother of all scams and bubbles.” He also said that the cryptocurrency world is a “stinking cesspool” and is fundamentally worth nothing.
However, Roubini may have changed his view about bitcoin, at least to a certain extent. During an interview with Yahoo Finance on Friday, he was asked what he thought of bitcoin now that it just had a bull run. After reiterating his stance that it is not a currency, Roubini said:
It may be a partial store of value because, unlike thousands of other what I call shitcoins, it cannot be so easily debased because there is at least an algorithm that decides how much the supply of bitcoin raises over time.
As for other cryptocurrencies, Dr. Doom said: “most of those other ones literally is done ad hoc, and they’re being debased faster than what the Fed is doing.”
Roubini also explained why he thinks that “cryptocurrency is a misnomer.” For something to be considered a currency, he described that it needs to be a unit of account, a single numeraire, a scalable means of payment, and a stable store of value that is not very volatile.
He claimed that bitcoin is not a unit of account because “Nothing is priced in bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.” In addition, he said that it is not a numerator because there are many tokens, and it is not a scalable means of payment because you can only make five transactions per second, unlike with the Visa network where you can make 25,000 transactions per second.
As for the future of cryptocurrency as an asset class, he emphasized that in his view, “it’s not scalable, it’s not secure, it’s not decentralized, [and] it’s not a currency.”
Furthermore, he explained that many central banks are working on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). When they are launched, every individual can have an account with a central bank where they can do payments from. When that happens, he said: “Not only you don’t need crypto, you don’t even need Venmo. You don’t even need a bank account. You don’t even need a check.” Dr. Doom elaborated:
The big revolution we’re going to see in the next three years is going to be central bank digital currencies. They’re going to be crowding out digital payment systems.
What do you think about Nouriel Roubini’s view? Let us know in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
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Douglas Tuman, a crypto enthusiast and host of the Monero Talk podcast, has lost in his bid to represent New York’s 4th District in the U.S. Congress. According to election results from The Associated Press, Tuman, a Republican, received 134,243 votes to incumbent Democrat Kathleen Rice’s 147,580 in New York’s 4th District, which includes parts […]
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Douglas Tuman, a crypto enthusiast and host of the Monero Talk podcast, has lost in his bid to represent New York’s 4th District in the U.S. Congress.
According to election results from The Associated Press, Tuman, a Republican, received 134,243 votes to incumbent Democrat Kathleen Rice’s 147,580 in New York’s 4th District, which includes parts of central and southern Nassau County. Rice has served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2015.
The Monero (XMR) podcaster first announced his intentions to run for Congress in March, stating that he was running on a platform “to improve representative democracy and money.” Tuman said he was willing to accept XMR and other crypto donations for his campaign to create a “more pro crypto” U.S. government.
“With the crypto community behind me we can probably get Monero national attention as free speech money,” said the congressional candidate. “Monero aligns with the ideals America was founded upon. It is America 2.0 — a protocol to preserve liberty in the digital age.”
Privacy coins like XMR have been involved in U.S. elections and legislation this year in one form or another. In October, crypto scammers briefly replaced a page on Donald Trump’s re-election campaign website, calling for readers to make donations to two Monero wallets if they wanted certain “strictly classified information” about the president released. The Internal Revenue Service also recently offered a bounty of up to $625,000 to anyone who can break the purportedly untraceable features of XMR.
Cointelegraph has reached out to Douglas Tuman, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
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📢 Protocol reminder: In advance of the validator vote to upgrade the public network to Protocol 15, anyone running Stellar Core should install v15.0.0 and anyone running Horizon should install v1.11.1. Last week, two new Horizon versions — v1.11.0 and v1.11.1 — were released. Changes include: The service field emitted in ingestion logs has been […]
The post Stellar Dev Digest: Issue #67. SCF Lab Fund Results, Stellar Quest… | by Kolten | Stellar Community | Nov, 2020 appeared first on Bitcointe.
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📢 Protocol reminder: In advance of the validator vote to upgrade the public network to Protocol 15, anyone running Stellar Core should install v15.0.0 and anyone running Horizon should install v1.11.1.
Last week, two new Horizon versions — v1.11.0 and v1.11.1 — were released. Changes include:
- The
servicefield emitted in ingestion logs has been changed fromexpingesttoingest. - Ledger stats are now exported in
/metricsinhorizon_ingest_ledger_stats_totalmetric. - Stellar Core database URL is no longer required when running in captive mode.
- xdr: Add a custom marshaller for claim predicate timestamp.
If you run Horizon on the testnet, you may have experienced some issues last weekend. Install the newest version of Horizon ASAP. It should fix them. If you run Horizon on the public network, make sure to install the newest version before the public network upgrade vote on 11/23/2020.
You can find the release notes for v1.11.0 here and v1.11.1 here.
⚒ ️Subscribe here to get Stellar maintenance reminders and incident reports sent straight to your inbox.
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The post Stellar Dev Digest: Issue #67. SCF Lab Fund Results, Stellar Quest… | by Kolten | Stellar Community | Nov, 2020 appeared first on Bitcointe.
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Bitcoin price is recovering well from its 6% drop to $14,800, but top altcoins are slow to follow. Professional traders are often perceived to be the smartest, as they weigh the risks before investing in an asset class. Opposite to that, most retail traders only keep an eye on the possible profits and disregard the […]
The post Price analysis 11/9: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LINK, BNB, LTC, DOT, ADA, BSV appeared first on Bitcointe.
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Bitcoin price is recovering well from its 6% drop to $14,800, but top altcoins are slow to follow.
Professional traders are often perceived to be the smartest, as they weigh the risks before investing in an asset class. Opposite to that, most retail traders only keep an eye on the possible profits and disregard the risk before investing.
Therefore, the increase in the number of Bitcoin (BTC) addresses holding more than 100 Bitcoin to a seven-month high, at 16,271, could be considered as a bullish sign. Furthermore, the low search volume for the keyword “Bitcoin” suggests that the current rally lacks the frenzied retail buying seen during the previous bull market in 2017.
PlanB, the creator of the stock-to-flow model, has maintained his bullish stance on Bitcoin, as he expects the price to at least rally to $100,000 by December 2021. If that happens, Bitcoin would command a market capitalization of about $2 trillion.
While crypto analysts are voicing bullish forecasts for Bitcoin, noted economist and Bitcoin skeptic Nouriel Roubini remains bearish, as he anticipates central bank digital currencies to start a big revolution in about three years. Thereafter, “Not only you don’t need crypto, you don’t even need Venmo,” said Roubini in a recent interview.
In other news, U.S. equity markets surged higher on the positive news that Pfizer is recording success in its COVID-19 vaccine trials. As the news broke, gold and Bitcoin prices corrected sharply, but it appears that crypto investors are viewing the dips as buying opportunities.
Let’s take a look at the top crypto assets to see how they are performing today.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin (BTC) is in an uptrend but is currently facing stiff resistance near $16,000. The failure to rise above the overhead resistance could attract profit-booking from the short-term traders and shorting by the aggressive bears.
If the BTC/USD pair breaks below $15,650, it could drop to the critical support at $14,000. The 20-day exponential moving average ($13,935) is placed just below this support; hence, the bulls are likely to defend this level aggressively.
A strong bounce off the 20-day EMA will indicate accumulation by the bulls at lower levels. The price could remain stuck between $14,000 and $16,000 for a few days before starting the next trending move.
If the bulls can push the price above $16,000, a rally to $17,200 and then to all-time highs is possible. Conversely, a break below the 20-day EMA could result in a fall to the 50-day simple moving average ($12,137).
ETH/USD
The bulls are struggling to push the price above the resistance line of the rising wedge pattern. Ether (ETH) formed an inside day candlestick pattern on Nov. 8 and is currently trading in a tight range. This suggests indecision among the bulls and the bears.
If the bears sink the price below $432, the possibility of a drop to the 20-day EMA ($409) increases. A break below the support line of the wedge will indicate an advantage to the bears.
However, the upsloping 20-day EMA and the relative strength index in the positive zone suggest an advantage to the bulls. If they can push the price above the wedge, the ETH/USD pair could rally to $488.134.
A breakout of this resistance could resume the uptrend with the next target at $520 and then $550.
XRP/USD
XRP attempted to break out of the range on Nov. 7 but the bears pushed the price right back in. The bulls are currently attempting to defend the moving averages. If they succeed, another attempt to push the price above $0.26 is likely.
If the price sustains above $0.26 for a day, the XRP/USD pair could start a new uptrend with the first target objective at $0.30.
However, the flat moving averages and the RSI near the midpoint suggest a balance between supply and demand. If the price slips below the moving averages, the pair could remain range-bound between $0.26 and $0.2295 for the next few days.
A break below the $0.2295 to $0.219712 support zone will tilt the advantage in favor of the bears.
BCH/USD
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) broke above $272 for the past two days but could not sustain the higher levels. The repeated price rejection shows that the bears are aggressively defending the $272–$280 resistance zone.
If the bears sink the price below the 20-day EMA ($257), the BCH/USD pair could drop to $242 and then to $231. Such a move will indicate the possibility of a range-bound action between $231 and $280 for a few days.
However, the upsloping moving averages and the RSI in the positive zone suggest a minor advantage to the bulls. If the bulls can push the price above the overhead resistance zone, a rally to $300 and then to $326.30 is possible.
LINK/USD
The bulls tried to propel Chainlink’s LINK above the $13.28 resistance on Nov. 7 but failed. However, the positive thing is that the altcoin bounced off the 20-day EMA ($11.46) and the bulls are again trying to push the price above the overhead resistance.
If they succeed, it will complete a bullish inverse head-and-shoulders pattern that has a target objective of $19.2731. The 20-day EMA ($11.46) has started to turn up gradually, and the RSI is in the positive territory, which suggests a minor advantage to the bulls.
However, if the price again turns down from the overhead resistance, the bears will try to sink the LINK/USD pair below the moving averages. If they succeed, a drop to $9.7665 is possible.
BNB/USD
Binance Coin (BNB) has been stuck between $32 and $25.6652 for the past few days. The bulls attempted to push the price above the moving averages on Nov. 7, but they failed.
The downsloping 20-day EMA ($28) and the RSI in negative territory suggest that bears have the upper hand. If the price sustains below the moving averages, a drop to $25.6652 is possible.
A bounce off this support could extend the stay inside the range for a few more days, while a break below it could start a new downtrend.
This negative view will be invalidated if the BNB/USD pair turns up from the current levels and breaks above $30. Such a move could result in a rally to $32.
LTC/USD
Litecoin (LTC) once again turned down from the stiff overhead resistance of $64 on Nov. 7. Barring the breakout on Aug. 17, the price has turned down from this resistance on three occasions.
The RSI is forming a bearish divergence, which suggests that the momentum may be weakening.
If the LTC/USD pair turns down from the current levels or the overhead resistance and plummets below the 20-day EMA ($56), it will increase the possibility of a drop to the 50-day SMA ($50).
On the other hand, if the pair rebounds off the 20-day EMA, the bulls will make one more attempt to push the price above $64. If they succeed, a rally to $68.9008 is possible.
DOT/USD
Polkadot’s DOT is currently trading inside a small range that has resistance at $4.95 and support at $3.80. The price turned down from $4.8586 on Nov. 7, which shows that the bears are aggressively defending this level.
However, the bulls are trying to keep the price above the moving averages, and the RSI has also taken support at the 50 level. If the RSI can break out of the downtrend line, it will indicate an advantage to the bulls.
If buyers can push the price above $4.95, a rally to $5.5899 is likely. The bears may again defend this level aggressively, but if the bulls can thrust the price above it, a new uptrend could begin.
ADA/USD
Cardano’s ADA turned down from the $0.1142241 resistance on Nov. 7, which shows that the bears are aggressively defending this level. However, the positive thing is that the bulls have not allowed the price to dip below the moving averages.
The strong rebound off the moving averages on Nov. 8 shows that the sentiment is to buy the dips. The bulls will again attempt to push the price above the overhead resistance. If they can pull it off, the ADA/USD pair could rally to $0.128 and then to $0.1445.
On the contrary, if the price again turns down from $0.1142241, then the range-bound action may continue for a few more days. A break below the moving averages will signal weakness, and the bears will then try to sink the pair below $0.0893.
BSV/USD
Bitcoin SV (BSV) continues to trade inside the broad range of $146 to $181. The price has been oscillating above and below the moving averages for the past three days, which shows that traders are undecided about the next move.
The flat moving averages and the RSI close to the halfway mark suggest a balance between supply and demand. If the price sustains below the moving averages, the bears will try to sink the BSV/USD pair to the critical support at $146.
A rebound off this level could extend the range-bound action for a few more days. The trend will shift in favor of the bulls if they can push the price above the overhead resistance at $181.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Market data is provided by exchange HitBTC.
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