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Crypto Guides

What’s Stopping Blockchain’s Mass Adoption?

Introduction

Blockchain technology came into the picture with the advent of cryptocurrencies. Since the value of cryptocurrencies is increasing exponentially day by day, people have started exploring its base technology, which is Blockchain. Blockchain has a lot of use cases in various industries say Supply chain, healthcare, agriculture, energy, data storage. In spite of all the use cases and numerous numbers of projects, consortiums in action today still the technology is considered to be nascent. Any technology takes time to reach masses, but Blockchain has certain hindrances that are stopping it from mass adoption. Let’s see some of them below.

No Universal Use Case

People often compare Blockchain as a new age internet. Just as the Internet changed the world forever, Blockchain is considered to do the same in the digital world. The Internet was created to provide information worldwide with the worldwide web. It created an industry for itself and reigned it. When it comes to Blockchain, it doesn’t have an industry of its own. It surely promises enough to revolutionize most of the existing sectors, but if there were one industry of its own, then the adoption and results would have been very promising. The combination of next-generation technologies, Artificial intelligence, machine learning, Blockchain, and the Internet of things may create an industry of its own that could be revolutionary.

Complicated Usage

The technology is quite complicated to use provided its secure nature. To perform a transaction in the bitcoin network, there should be an address with a string of numbers, wallets, transaction time, transaction fees, and a lot of stuff. All this terminology is pretty new to a novice user and finds it pretty challenging to use. Mass adoption will be possible only if we educate people enough. Most of the people know about Blockchain only through cryptocurrencies, and that notion should change. People should understand that Blockchain is much more than just cryptocurrencies.

Scalability

One of the significant issues with mass adoption is scalability, i.e., the number of transactions per second (TPS). When we take cryptocurrencies, the original bitcoin blockchain processed only 7 TPS. As the adoption of cryptocurrencies increased, processing time and transaction fees increased drastically, which will discourage people from using cryptocurrencies. Visa/Mastercard supports 24000 TPS, which is used worldwide and is very reliable. Even though some platforms are claiming 40000 TPS, we should check whether they are safe enough or not.

Standardization of Smart Contracts

Smart contracts have received popularity, and many enterprises have started using the same for their business needs. But there is no standardization, and there are a lot of vulnerabilities when it comes to smart contracts. The code is not standard. There is a scope for a lot of vulnerabilities. Hence if certain standards are established like formal verification of contracts to check vulnerabilities, the security of the system increases more.

Energy Consumption Issues

It is a well-known fact that proof of work, which is mainly used in bitcoin blockchain as of today, consumes a lot of energy. Environmentalists throughout the world are entirely against it. Hence the usage of energy friendly consensus algorithms like proof of stake should be used if mass adoption is to be made. Recently Ethereum has shifted to proof of stake from proof of work, which is a welcome move.

Regulation by Governments

Finally, governments should agree or accept the trade, registrations, or any legal matter of the sort to be done in blockchain platforms. As per the government rules, if certain transactions should be done only on paper, then it is not possible to use Blockchain. Governments across the world are at least trying to regularize cryptocurrency, considering the widespread usage. Hence, technology use in other aspects should also be considered.

These are some of the reasons that are holding back the mass adoption of this amazing technology. It is important to note that there is a lot of research and development being done in this space to overcome the above-mentioned hurdles.

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Cryptocurrencies

Infinito Wallet Review 2020: Features, Cost, Pros And Cons

On the Infinito Wallet website, their mobile app is described as the “Best Crypto Wallet & DAPP Browser.” It is created and run by Infinito Blockchain Labs, a technology company registered in The Isle of Man, the U.K. The multi-asset crypto mobile app was launched in 2017 and has leveraged technology to come up with one of the most innovative crypto mobile apps today. The app takes pride in three of its primary features; the support for the widest range of cryptocoins and tokens, a built-in exchange, and support for EOS functions.

These play a key role in giving it an edge over the competition. But how safe and reliable is the mobile app considering that it is an unregulated broker? We thoroughly analyzed the app and its parent company and came up with this review that answers every question you have about the Infinito wallet.

Infinito Key features:

Pure mobile wallet: Infinito crypto wallet is mobile-based and only available to Android and iOS device users. Unlike most other apps that have either a desktop or Webtrader platform alongside the mobile app, Infinito was specially designed for mobile devices.

Built-in exchange: Infinito wallet app is one of the few all-rounded crypto apps. It recently introduced a built-in exchange in partnership with Changelly, where its members can seamlessly exchange cryptocurrencies.

Support for EOS apps: Infinito crypto wallet users can also access the EOS platform and take advantage of its features using the app. The support for EOS functions means you can sell RAM, stake CPU, and even create an EOS account and DAPPs without leaving the wallet app.

Price tracking and newsroom: You can track and receive notification about the price changes of your favorite assets using the app. And as part of the wallet roadmap, you will soon have access to one of the most comprehensive crypto newsrooms within the app.

Crypto lending: The crypto mobile wallet further maintains a secondary market where you can lend out your digital assets and earn interests in their use.

Infinito DAPP square: The Infinito crypto wallet app recently introduced the Infinito DAPP square that gives you access to leading DApps on the crypto space. In addition, they are integrated with the wallet for ease of payments.

Security features:

Password protected: The Infinito crypto wallet app is passcode protected. You get to set the password during the app installation and setup.

Biometric security: In addition to the passcode, the Infinito crypto mobile app supports several other Biometric security features, including Facial recognition and fingerprint.

Hierarchically deterministic: Infinito is also a hierarchically deterministic wallet, and this means you can create multiple wallet addresses to mask your public key and throw off trackers.

Open-sourced platform: Infinito crypto wallet is built on an open-sourced platform that has been vetted and audited by some of the most experienced crypto technologists in the world.

Risk management tools: Some of the risk management tools employed by the Infinito crypto wallet app include a profile check and detailed risk report about every wallet user. Always check this before engaging a trader on the platform.

The wallet doesn’t store any sensitive data: Infinito doesn’t store any sensitive information about their clients on their servers. It is non-custodial, and thus the private keys are under your control and stored within the mobile wallet. 

Ease of use:

The Infinito crypto wallet app maintains a friendly user interface that’s easy to use for both crypto beginners and veteran traders. It is highly customizable, allowing users to tweak such aspects of the app as its background (light and dark themes), and change the size and color of texts and icons.

Infinito crypto wallet app is also multilingual and currently supports up to 12 international languages (English, Chinese, German, Thai, Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Italian, French, Hindi, and Portuguese). The app installation, as well as the process of sending and receiving digital currencies, are also easy and straightforward.

Currencies supported

According to the Infinito crypto wallet website, you can send, receive, and exchange 2000+ cryptocurrencies and tokens on the app.

Some of the popular cryptocurrencies supported on the platform include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Dash. Litecoin, Dogecoin, ETC, EOS, NEO, and GAS.

The crypto wallet app also supports all the ERC 20 and NEP-5 tokens and will soon start supporting EOS and other tokens, as described on their road map.

Infinito wallet cost and other fees

Acquiring the Infinito crypto wallet app is free. You also won’t be charged to store your coins on the wallet.

Crypto transactions on the exchange and the EOS main net, however, attract variable charges depending on the transaction volumes and exchange network. These fees go to the system Infinito Blockchain network miners who confirm and validate transactions.

The crypto wallet app also has a price optimization feature that lets you set the transaction fees based on the speed with which you want the transaction confirmed. Here, high paying users will have their transactions confirmed in the shortest time possible.

Setting up the Infinito wallet:

How to install Infinito wallet:

Step 1: Download and install the Infinito Crypto wallet app: Google Play Store for Android OS users and Apple App Store for iOS users.

Step 2:  Select the ‘Create a New Account’ option and agree to the app’s terms and Conditions.

Step 3: Next is the backup page where the app presents you with 12 phrases, also known as recovery seed, which serve as your account backup. Write it down on a piece of paper and store it in a highly secure place.

Step 4:  Next is the passphrase verification step where you chose the correct order of seed words.

Step 5: Set up a strong password and finish the setup process.

Step 6: The app will direct you to the user dashboard, after which you can add, send, or receive coins to your wallet.

Note: You may first want to head over to the settings page to add more security layers to your accounts, such as fingerprint or facial recognition.

Sending and receiving coins:

To receive funds into your Infinito Wallet:

Step 1: Click on the coins/tokens you wish to add to your wallet and tap ‘receive.’

Note: The Infinito crypto wallet app has default addresses for Bitcoin, Ethereum, NEO, and GAS coins. If you want to add another address, click on the coins/tokens tabs and tap the coin, you wish to add. The wallet will create an address automatically.

Step 2: You will have the option of a QR code or wallet address. You can send either to the individual sending you the coins.

Step 3: Wait to receive the coins.

To send payments from your Infinito Wallet:

Step 1: On your user dashboard, click on the token/coin you wish to send.

Step 2: Select the “Send” option and enter the recipient’s wallet address and the amounts you wish to send.

Step 3: Chose the transaction fees (either Premium. Economy or Regular) and tap next.

Step 4: Confirm the wallet address, amount details, and send.

Infinito hardware wallet pros and cons:

Pros:

  •         Maintains a multi-layered security fence around the user account with a combination of passwords and biometrics.
  •         Supports one of the widest range of crypto coins and tokens.
  •         Easy and straightforward registration, coin-sending, and receiving processes.
  •         Has a built-in exchange and highly optimized transaction fees.
  •         It is one of the few crypto mobile apps that support the EOS main net and most functions, including the creation and use of EOS DApps.

Cons:

  •         Infinito Crypto wallet app is a hot wallet and, therefore, susceptible to more risks than the average hard wallet.
  •         It is relatively new and unregulated.
  •         It doesn’t have a web trader platform or desktop app.

Infinito wallet compared to competitors:

Comparing infinito with Hit wallets:

When compared to such other hot wallets as eToro, Infinito carries the day when it comes to the number of supported cryptocoins and tokens. Also, it has more integrated features like the support for the EOS main net, the creation of EOS account, and ease of interaction with the EOS DApps. It can, however, be said to be less secure than eToro, which stores its clients’ digital assets in cold storage and supports the trade of the not-so-risky CFDs.

Comparing infinito with hardware wallets:

When gauged against hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano S, the Infinito crypto wallet app takes the day for a more versatile and more technologically innovative platform. But its security features, including the integration of biometric systems, though innovative, aren’t as hardy. For instance, the hot wallet is susceptible to remote hacks that may authorize crypto transactions using the wallet. The Ledger Nano S is, on the other hand, insulated from such, as it stores private keys offline, and its transactions must be authorized by a button on the hardware crypto storage device.

Customer support:

Infinito Wallet has a relatively responsive customer support team. It is multilingual and accessible via the live chat on the wallet’s website. Alternatively, you can rely on their elaborate FAQ page, send them an email, open a support ticket via the ‘Contact Us’ icon on the website, or through the different social media platforms.

Note that Infinito doesn’t offer phone support.

Verdict: Is the Infinito wallet safe?

The Infinito crypto mobile app has several impressive operational and security features that make it one of the most technologically advanced mobile wallet. It carries out identity verification by following the KYC protocol, has open-sourced its blockchain for vetting and auditing by the global internet security community, and incorporated biometric account safety features. Since its debut in 2017, it has never suffered a security breach. All these are a clear indication of a highly secure platform, save for the fact that it is unregulated. 

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Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, May 15 – Bitcoin Rejected from $10,000 – What’s Next?

The crypto market has spent the past day testing its support and resistance levels and was generally in a state of indecisiveness. Bitcoin is currently trading for $9,671, which represents an increase of 1.65% on the day. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 0.57% on the day, while XRP lost 0.03%.

OmiseGO took the position of today’s most prominent daily gainer, with gains of 27.28%. Crypterium lost 15.56% of its daily value, making it the most prominent daily loser.

Bitcoin’s dominance moved up slightly once again since we last reported, with its value currently at 68.21%. This value represents a 0.45% difference to the upside.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization increased slightly when compared to yesterday’s value, with its current value being $259.1 billion. This value represents an increase of $2.42 billion when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Visa files a Patent for Digital Currency

Visa has filed a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office to create digital currency on its own blockchain. While the patent was filed all the way back in Nov 2018, Visa decided to publish the application just yesterday (May 14).

The patent is for a digital currency and not a cryptocurrency, as it states that they want to create a digital currency that is recorded on a blockchain and centrally controlled.

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Technical analysis

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Bitcoin

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was quite indecisive in its price movements in the past day. After a couple of days of making solid gains, the bull presence subsided and Bitcoin got rejected from crossing above $10,000, which triggered a pullback. While the pullback was sharp and brought its price back to $9,200 in a matter of hours, it quickly recovered and is now above $9,500 and going up.


If Bitcoin manages to cross the $10,010 mark with sufficient volume, traders might want to jump the train on the trade and start looking for a good entry.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $9,735                                          1: $9,580

2: $9,870                                          2: $9,250

3: $10,010                                         3: $9,120

Ethereum

Ethereum spent the day mirroring Bitcoin but in a much more toned fashion. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap started retracing as bull presence left the market but quickly stopped at the support level of  $198. It is currently on the upturn and solid above that support level.


However, Ethereum’s RSI is pretty high while its volume did not move from the low levels it was at, so any big move is out of the question until at least some parameter changes.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $217.6                                            1: $198

2: $225.4                                           2: $193.6

3: $240                                               3: $185

Ripple

XRP did not have a good time in the past 24 hours, as its price movements were bound within a tight range, right between the resistance level of $0.205 and support level of $0.2. XRP desperately tried to move out of it, but with no success.


However, the $0.2, which was heavily tested, ended up holding the price from going down, which is great news. XRP is now having an uptick, which may start poking the top level.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.205                                           1: $0.2

2: $0.214                                           2: $0.19

3: $0.227                                            3: $0.178

 

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Crypto Videos

Crypto Trading For Beginners!

The Easiest Profitable Bitcoin Strategy

So many traders struggle with making a profit in the volatile crypto market. They test several indicators by themselves or maybe even in a couple of indicators together, but with no success. Even if they found success during a bull market phase, they started losing money once the market changed directions.

Backtesting

Harry Nicholls backtested various crypto trading indicators in order to find the one that works best. He tested RSI, Stochastic, Bollinger Bands, MACD, Parabolic SAR, and Ichimoku Cloud.

All of the strategy parameters were kept to default. What he found out is that, at the time of the experiment, some indicators performed better than the other. While some netted over 20% gains overall, some lost over 15%.

If we take his research up to here, we can clearly see that the MACD is the clear winner among the indicators tested. However, is it? While the MACD was profitable and netted 22.51% after over three years of trading, the market itself went from $300 to, at one point, $19,900, which is far more than 22.51%.

The Buy and Hold method

After seeing that, he implemented the Buy and Hold method, which simply bought in the first time the indicator notified that it is a good time to buy, and held until the present. As the picture shows, the gains are immeasurable compared to the previous ones. The worst-performing indicator was Parabolic SAR, with the gains of 2,125.07%, just under 100 times the gains of MACD trading.

It is clear that the Buy and Hold method works so much better than trading based on one indicator, which is the whole point Nicholls was trying to make. Relying on just one trading indicator or tool is simply far too unpredictable for constant trading. Inexperienced traders do not have to dive into trading head-first and lose a lot of money in order to learn how to profitably trade. They can rather learn on the go while investing safely, as Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market are already making amazing gains by themselves.

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Crypto Videos

Crypto! The Most Important Altcoin Trading Rule!

 

The Most Important Altcoin Trading Rule

While most people are introduced to cryptocurrencies through Bitcoin investing and trading, the cryptocurrency market is much more than just Bitcoin. There are countless altcoins out there that compete with Bitcoin or try to solve some other problems existing in the world.
Whether traders support certain altcoins or not, the fact is that altcoins trading can be extremely profitable. However, not many people know how to properly trade altcoins as the profit has to be tracked both against the fiat currencies and against Bitcoin.

Altcoin Trading

Altcoin trading is not much different from Bitcoin trading in terms of indicators and tools traders use to trade it. It is just as volatile and just as predictable (or rather unpredictable) as Bitcoin is. However, one main difference is that it is highly correlated to Bitcoin and that altcoins traders need to take Bitcoin’s price movement into consideration when trading altcoins.
When Bitcoin moves in the same directions altcoins are moving, traders need to think of whether their money will grow more while sitting in Bitcoin or altcoins. When Bitcoin is about to move in the opposite direction to altcoins, traders have to think about whether altcoins will be “pulled” in Bitcoin’s direction, and how much. In a market where Bitcoin’s price is stable, altcoins trading certainly becomes superior to just holding Bitcoin as traders can make greater profits off of altcoins price fluctuations.
Altcoin traders need to watch the general trend of the specific altcoins as well as Bitcoin’s trend prior to engaging in trades.

Conclusion

This guide should be considered advice to all traders willing to go into altcoins trading. As with everything, with more risk comes more opportunity, and altcoins trading is no different. If you learn to incorporate and merge Bitcoin analysis with altcoins analysis, your altcoins trading will be far more profitable.

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Cryptocurrencies

BRD Wallet Review 2020: What Are Its Features, Cost, Pros, And Cons

BRD Wallet is a non-custodial mobile wallet built on the iOS platform. Non-custodial implies that Private keys for your digital assets are held on your mobile device, and not on BRD’s servers. The wallet has gained popularity in the recent past, primarily due to its support for anonymous trading, as well as the inclusion of multilayered security features aimed at preserving the integrity and safety of the user’s account and private keys.

But BRD is more than just a wallet, it is a blockchain network with its own native token. In this BRD wallet review, we will be looking at all the popular operational and security features associated with BRD, its fees and ease of use, and tell you whether it is a secure wallet.

BRD Key features:

Multiplatform: BRD Wallet is a mobile-based crypto wallet. It is built on the iOS platform and was originally designed for Apple product users. A surge in popularity has, however, seen the release of the android BRD wallet version for Android OS powered devices. 

Fast: The BRD wallet uses the Special Payment Verification (SPV) protocol to connect to the Bitcoin blockchain, effectively guaranteeing the fastest crypto transaction confirmation speeds.

Native tokens: BRD is one of the few networks that maintains its own native token, the BRD Token.

Reward program: The BRD wallet is also one of the few networks that have an active loyalty reward scheme. The more BRD tokens you buy and hold in your wallet, the higher the rewards. 1,000 BRDs will get you 25% off trading fees, 2,500 BRDs gets you access to phone support, while 100,000+ BRDs gets you a phone call with BRD wallet CEO.

Support for debit cards: The BRD wallet doesn’t just make it possible to exchange coins, you can also easily pay for your Bitcoins or any other coins within the BRD network, using debit and credit cards.

Open source technology: The BRD wallet is also established on an open-sourced technology platform. This has, over the years, been vetted and audited by internet security experts with possible loopholes identified and patched. 

Blockchain toolbox: Most recently, BRD introduced the BRD blockchain toolbox referred to as the Blockset. This is a technology platform that blockchain technologists can use to create enterprise apps. According to BRD, Blockset will at first support Bitcoin, XRP, Hedera, and Ethereum blockchains before bringing more networks on board.

Security features:

Password protected: When installing the BRD wallet app, you will be required to set a six-digit password.

Biometric features: In addition to the passcode, BRD also incorporates other security features such as fingerprint and Facial recognition biometrics.

Anonymous trading: When creating a user account with BRD wallet, the company doesn’t ask for information personally identifiable to you, like your name, physical address, or email address. Neither will you be subjected to the KYC verification process. And this allows for anonymous crypto transactions.

12 phrase seed backup: Should you ever forget the account password, or lose access to the mobile device hosting your private keys, you can always recover your BRD wallet account using the 12 phrase recovery, generated by the wallet during installation.

AES hardware encryption: The private keys and any other information stored in your BRD wallet is also highly encrypted using the AES hardware encryption technology.

BRD Wallet ease of use:

BRD wallet is an easy to use crypto vault. While it hosts numerous features, they are all neatly organized on the user dashboard. The BRD wallet account registration processes are also easy and straightforward.

The mobile wallet app is also multilingual, supporting up to 13 international languages and currently available to the crypto community members in over 150 countries across the world. 

Currencies supported

BRD wallet was initially designed to be a Bitcoin Only wallet. Over time, however, the mobile vault has incorporated several other cryptocurrencies and tokens, including Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum, stable coins like TrueUSD, and all the ERC 20 tokens.

It has Bitcoin as the default wallet address, and therefore, you will need to manually add the wallet for any other crypto you wish to transact. The process is, however, easy as you only need to head over to the cryptocurrency exchange list on your user dashboard, and click on the ‘Add’ icon that displays against the coin you wish to buy/send.

BRD crypto wallet cost and other fees

Acquiring the BRD wallet and storing your digital assets is free. Transacting through the app, however, attracts variable fees, depending on factors such as the blockchain network involved, the number of coins being exchanged, and the medium of exchange.

If you, for instance, wish to buy crypto assets using a credit card, you incur as much as 5% in transaction fees.  Your bank or debit card provider may also charge a processing fee when you wish to make cash deposits like USD, EUR, CAD, DKK, and GBP for purchases of different cryptocurrencies within the app.

Setting up the BRD crypto wallet:

How to install a BRD wallet:

Step 1: Download the BRD crypto wallet app from the Google Play Store on your Android or the Apple App Store for your iOS mobile device and install it.

Step 2: Create and memorize a six-digit passcode that you will be using to access the wallet app.

Step 3: The crypto wallet app will then auto-generate 12 phrases that serve as the backup seed for your account. You will need them to recover your wallet and private keys therein if you forget the password.

Step 4: You are now set and can start transferring cryptocurrencies to the wallet and buy or sell in the app-based exchange.

Note: Before you start transacting using the app, we advise that you first add a biometric security feature such as the fingerprint or Face ID to the app as an additional security layer.

Sending and receiving coins:

To receive funds into your BRD Wallet:

Step 1: Log in to your BRD crypto wallet app.

Step 2:  On your user dashboard, click on the coin you wish to receive.

Step 3:  Tap the receive option to display the wallet address and the QR code. Copy either and send them to the party sending you coins.

To send payments from your BRD Wallet:

Step 1: Log in to your BRD crypto wallet app.

Step 2: On your user dashboard, click on the coin you wish to send.

Step 3: Tap the send option to display the payment details. Enter the recipient’s wallet address and the number of coins you wish to send.

Step 4: Confirm the payment details and hit send.

BRD hardware wallet pros and cons:

Pros:

  • Its open-sourced nature and integration of biometric features speak a lot about the app development team’s dedication to its security.
  • The wallet app is relatively easy to use, as it features a friendly user interface.
  • The app simplifies crypto exchanges by making it possible to buy digital assets via debit cards, credit cards, and even cash.
  • It combines a wide range of security features that include; encryption, biometrics, pin code, and open-sourced codes to preserve the integrity of the app.
  • The app has very low latency and some of the fastest bitcoin transaction processing speeds.

Cons:

  • One may consider the number of digital currencies supported by the mobile wallet limiting.
  • It is still a hot wallet, and this implies that it is susceptible to internet threats like remote hacker access and ransomware.
  • Some essential services, like phone support, are only available to individuals with a large number of BRD coin deposits.
  • The fact that it supports credit/debit cards and bank transfers beats its intention of anonymous trading as their transactions can always be tied back to a specific crypto account.

BRD wallet compared to competitors:

Comparing BRD with Infinito crypto wallet apps.

BRD and Infinito are both technologically advanced and highly innovative crypto wallet apps. Equally, Their bots have similar attention to account security as they both advocate for a strong password and biometric backups. However, BRD pales in the face of Infinito when it comes to the number of supported cryptocurrencies and the app’s ease of use. While BRD supports just a handful of coins and tokens, Infinito hosts 2000+ digital currencies.

Comparing the BRD crypto wallet app with Trezor hardware wallet.

The Trezor hardware wallet is superior to the BRD wallet app in three key security and operational areas. First, it stores the owners’ coins offline. Secondly, it has the backup of the physical on-device button used to authorize any crypto transaction. And lastly, it supports more coins and tokens. One may, however, consider the BRD wallet app easier to acquire as it is freely available, easier to use, and more beginner-friendly.

Customer support:

BRD wallet has a fairly responsive customer support team that you can engage with on the live chat, through email or one of their social media handles. This team is multilingual and can communicate in over 13 languages.

The only downside is that you need to buy and maintain a balance of 2,500+ BRD tokens to have access to phone support to BRD’s customer service team. 

Verdict: Is the BRD crypto wallet app safe?

Several features of the BRD crypto wallet app give us a lot of confidence about the security of their wallets, and the safety of private keys stored therein. These include its open-sourced technology, the use of a passcode, the integration of Biometric security features, and the backup seed. BRD crypto app has an above average safety score, but we recommend that you first invest in a very strong antivirus before installing the crypto wallet app. 

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, May 14 – Bitcoin near $9,500; German Bank Offers Interest-Yielding BTC Accounts

The cryptocurrency market has spent the past day reaching new fights, with almost every single cryptocurrency in the top100 ending up in the green. Bitcoin is currently trading for $9,467, which represents an increase of 6.24% on the day. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 4.54% on the day, while XRP went up by 2.04%.

Crypterium took the position of today’s most prominent daily gainer, with gains of 27.28%. ABBC Coin lost 8.32% of its daily value, making it the most prominent daily loser.

Bitcoin’s dominance moved up slightly since we last reported, with its value currently at 67.76%. This value represents a 0.3% difference to the upside.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization increased by a good portion when compared to yesterday’s value, with its current value being $256.68 billion. This value represents an increase of $12.78 billion when compared to yesterday’s value.

What happened in the past 24 hours

German Neobank offers Bitcoin Accounts with Interest

German neobank Bitwala started offering its users interest rates of up to 4.3% when using its new Bitcoin Interest Account. The product is currently available to Bitwala’s 80,000 users. They can purchase, hold, and earn interest on Bitcoin in their bank accounts.

The Bitcoin Interest Account reached the market due to a new partnership between Bitwala and a crypto-lending platform Celsius Network.

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Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has broken the range it was bound withing after some time struggling to do so, passing over $9,000 and reaching almost $9,500. Bitcoin was trading at the top line of its ascending trend for some time, constantly testing the resistance level. Today has been the day where the price broke out, went above $8,980, retested it, and then skyrocketed. That trading opportunity was exactly as described in our previous articles.


Bitcoin is currently near the oversold territory on the 4-hour chart.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $9,580                                           1: $9,250

2: $9,735                                           2: $9,120

3: $9,870                                            3: $8,980

Ethereum

Ethereum, led by Bitcoin’s price surge, has broken out above the descending channel it was in for some time now. While the move was not nearly as strong as Bitcoin’s, it was just enough to push through the channel and stay above $198.


The $198 support level is being tested at the time of writing, and price dropping below it with increased volume might be a good trading opportunity.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $198                                               1: $193.6

2: $217.6                                           2: $185

3: $225.4                                            3: $178.65

Ripple

XRP has followed the market in terms of direction, but not in terms of intensity. The third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap followed Bitcoin on its way up and increased in price as well. While it did manage to conquer $0.2, the move can (in no way, shape, or form) be called strong.


XRP is now trading within a very narrow channel, bound by $0.205 to the upside and $0.2 (which it is constantly testing) to the downside.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.205                                           1: $0.2

2: $0.214                                           2: $0.19

3: $0.227                                            3: $0.178

 

Categories
Crypto Videos

Applying The Stock To Flow Model To The Bitcoin Halving


Stock to Flow model and Bitcoin Halving

What is the Stock to Flow model?

The Stock to Flow model is a way to measure the abundance of a certain resource. The Stock to Flow ratio would then be the amount of a resource that is held in reserves divided by the amount of the resource produced annually.
While the Stock to Flow model is generally applied to natural resources, it has seen some use when predicting the cryptocurrency prices as of lately.

What does Stock to Flow show?

The S2F essentially shows a product’s supply increase each year for a given resource relative to its total supply. The higher the Stock to Flow ratio is, the less new supply enters the resource market relative to the total supply. Assets with a higher Stock to Flow ratio should, theoretically, retain its value over the long-term better than those with a lower Stock to Flow ratio.

Stock to Flow and Bitcoin

When Bitcoin’s mining and production is taken into account, it’s not difficult to see why Stock to Flow ratio would be used on calculating and predicting Bitcoin’s price. The model treats Bitcoin comparably to commodities such as gold or silver. In theory, such commodities should retain their value much better than other assets over the long term due to their low flow and relative scarcity.

As of recently, Bitcoin is considered a very similar resource, as it is scarce, costly to produce and has a maximum supply. On top of that, its issuance is defined which makes the flow almost completely predictable, which can be extremely useful when calculating long-term price movements.

According to the “followers” of this model, the properties that Bitcoin has create a scarce resource that is expected to retain and increase its value in the long-term. The chart shows that the Stock to Flow ratio has been extremely accurate in the long-term as the price acted almost the same way after every Bitcoin halving (which reduced its daily supply by half).

Conclusion

The Stock to Flow model is a visual representation of the relationship between the available Bitcoin and its production rate. While it has so far been successful in predicting Bitcoin’s price movements, it may not be able to take into account all aspects of the Bitcoin valuation. Even so, Bitcoin’s Stock to Flow ratio is something that should be tracked and taken into account when looking for long-term trends and how Bitcoin might act in the future.

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Crypto Videos

The Crypt Rainbow Chart! Making Magical Gains!

 

Bitcoin Rainbow Chart Signaling to Buy

Traders all around the world are getting into cryptocurrency trading because of the volatility and profit potential it brings. However, the aforementioned volatility can also be the doom to traders if not taken seriously. Due to the high-risk nature of cryptocurrency trading, some traders are opting for longer-term trading.

Bitcoin Rainbow Chart

Bitcoin Rainbow Chart is a logarithmic chart that shows the evolution of the bitcoin (BTC) price, and was created so people can have a certain level of price expectation based on this model. It was created by Über Holger, the CEO of Holger.
This chart allows traders to observe price movements over the longer term while ignoring the disturbances generated by daily volatility. The rainbow chart divides the Bitcoin price into eight colored bands, namely: bubble zone, sell zone, FOMO, bubble formation zone, HODL zone, still cheap zone, accumulation zone, as well as buy and discounts zones.
The names of these bands, as well as the chart as a whole, are humorous and wasn’t created with the intention of providing real insight in future price movement. However, this graph has been quite successful in doing what it was not created for, which is prediction.
The curve of the eight bands was often described as “too perfect not to make sense”. All of the post-halving bubbles ended in the “bubble” zone, or even beyond it, while the three pre-halving low price levels have always been placed in the “discounts” zone. However, the have been some doubts as the chart failed to give accurate info in a few instances.

What does the Rainbow Chart say now?

An interesting thing about this chart is that the Bitcoin rainbow chart is now showing that Bitcoin’s price is in the buy zone. Along with the Bitcoin’s halving event, the price might actually see a price increase that this chart expects.

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Crypto Daily Topic

Blockchain Use Case: Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering

Recent studies show that it costs about $6,000 for a financial institution to onboard a new client. Moreover, collating the data of the new customer may end up taking 2 to 4 weeks, depending on a country’s regulation.

Unfortunately, financial institutions cannot avoid these costs entirely since there are mandatory laws requiring banks to record details of all their customers. These laws are commonly known as know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) policies that are enforced by the government under the Bank Security Act. Essentially, the laws are meant to deter illegal financial activities such as financial identity theft and tax evasion. 

Maintaining compliance with these regulations usually involves tedious paperwork alongside the numerous and expensive costs involved in the process. Additionally, clerical errors when collecting customer’s personal details may lead to inefficiencies in collating the entire data. 

With the advent of blockchain technology, KYC and AML compliance can be made easier and cost-effective by leveraging the abilities of smart contracts and decentralised applications (dApps). 

But before we can look at how Blockchain can help organisations maintain compliance, let’s first understand the current state of KYC and AML laws.

Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering Policies 

Organizations, particularly those in the finance industry, are required by law to check the identity of their clients before and during doing business with them. This concept has even been extended to other business models – accelerated by the predominance of corruption, financial terrorism and tax evasion cases. Know your Customer (KYC) policy also protects customers from crimes such as financial identity theft. 

On the other hand, Anti-Money laundering (AML) law is designed to stop criminals from making money through illegal activities. It also makes it possible for banks to detect and report suspicious financial crimes. 

Currently, institutions maintain KYC and AML systems via digital accounting and hardcopy files. This creates room for errors either by the task force managing the information or technical failure of the devices being used.

It becomes even harder for multi-national corporations given the sheer amount of time required to verify and collate numerous data. When you factor in the operational costs and the time required to ensure the process flows seamlessly, it’s easy to see why blockchain technology can be of much help. 

How Blockchain can be Used to improve KYC and AML Compliance

Blockchain technology is a decentralized, immutable and distributed ledger that records transactions chronologically in near real-time.  These are characteristics the financial industry can tap into to improve KYC and AML compliance. They can do this in the following ways: 

  • Distributed Client Data Collection 

Using Blockchain, a KYC and AML registry can be created; through which only authorised banks and financial institutions will have access keys. This will help accelerate a client’s onboard process since each time an institution needs the client’s details, they’ll only have to request for the private keys to access the data. 

Simply put, the technology will simplify data gathering, processing and verification which translates into saving more time and money compared to traditional KYC systems. Reduced onboarding time through blockchain-based KYC systems also increases confidence in the financial service provider.

Additionally, the newfound interoperability in terms of sharing data means that banks and regulators will communicate efficiently, thus, improving compliance. As such, regulators will be notified of violations in real-time and respond almost immediately. 

  • Data Protection and Management 

Identity theft, being one of the most common financial crimes, can easily be mitigated by a blockchain-powered KYC system. When a customer feeds their background information into the blockchain ledger, the data is cryptographically hashed; making it impossible for anyone to corrupt or change it in any way. The security is further improved by the decentralized nature of the ledger technology, thereby eliminating the risk of cyber-attacks which are associated with having data held in a central location. 

Thanks to the improved security, data interoperability can safely be executed  unlike when using  traditional siloed KYC infrastructures. As such, banks don’t have to process data all over again every time a client uses a different product/service under the same bank. 

  • Less Paperwork 

Incorporating Blockchain into the current KYC and AML registries can digitize the existing infrastructure. This is achieved by using smart contracts that create, read, and verify client details automatically, reducing the cumbersome paperwork involved in the traditional process. 

In the current KYC and AML systems, a client’s background information is stored separately in various institutions like banks, hospitals, and motor vehicle registry servers. This means that a new customer has to fill in loads of paperwork when using services offered by these institutions. Further, in case a customer switches from one bank account to another, the new one has to conduct a KYC procedure again resulting in tiring paperwork for both the client and the bank. 

Blockchain can solve this by providing a distributed ledger where all the client’s details are stored and can be accessed by various institutions. 

  • Revamp KYC and AML Procedures

Blockchain is a relatively new technology that is still finding use in various industries. As such, it’s incorporation into KYC and AML procedures can upgrade the current systems to stay up to date with the new technology trend. This is essential for institutions considering the increasing demand to create mobile apps to allow users to access services remotely. The apps come with security flaws, e.g. vulnerability to hacks, which can be best solved by blockchain cryptography algorithms.

Besides, as institutions continue to extend their market outreach, upgrading to blockchain KYC solutions is an ideal way to step up their current infrastructure to accommodate the growing number of customers. At the same time, considering that tax fraudsters are always devising new ways to commit crimes, adopting blockchain solutions upgrades security measures to counter the new threats. 

Conclusion

Blockchain solutions bring in the much needed efficiency into the customer due diligence process, saving an institution’s money and time. Consequently, these resources can be channeled to other core administrative operations, improving the overall service delivery. Ultimately, financial crimes and compliance violations will be reduced in the long haul. 

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

How Blockchain can Improve Trade Finance

Blockchain technology continues to dominate headlines across the world thanks to its revolutionary solutions. In fact, an almost never-ending list of projects have been rolled out in various industries, demonstrating the benefits of this technology. 

The global trade finance market in particular is a fertile ground for blockchain solutions given the inefficiencies and fraud vulnerabilities plaguing the industry. The paper processes involved in the current trade finance framework need to be upgraded to digital operations and blockchain could play a big role in this transformation. 

How  Trade Finance Works

Basically, blockchain solutions aim at filling the gaps in an industry’s operational processes. For this reason, it helps to understand how the trade finance industry runs, so as to identify blockchain’s potential entry point. 

Trade finance refers to the financial products and companies that facilitate international trade. This means that there are several third-parties involved in a successful trade, adding cumulative costs. 

For example, imagine a local company seeks to import goods from an overseas company. The importer needs to pay for the goods but is hesitant to do so before full proof that the goods will arrive as ordered. The exporter on the other hand is also hesitant to ship the goods without proof that payments will be sent for the goods supplied. This is where intermediaries come in.

To ensure that both companies keep the end of their bargain, the importer’s bank sends a letter of credit to the exporter, promising to pay for the goods. However, the payment can only be made once the importer receives a document showing that the goods have been loaded into a cargo for shipping. 

This trade finance framework has been in place for quite a long time, with lots of paperwork being sent back and forth between the importer and exporter. It gets even more intricate with the involvement of freight forwarders, insurers and other small companies, making it prone to errors and frauds; not to mention the time and money used in the process. 

Utilizing Blockchain in Trade Finance

Blockchain, as a distributed ledger system, has the ability to streamline trade finance by creating an  end-to-end network where exporters and importers can engage directly. Here’s a quick primer on how blockchain can improve trade finance:

i) Increased Efficiency

By eliminating the need for an intermediary, blockchain can create a trade finance ecosystem where the importers and exporters share trade-related data in real-time. This would go a long way into minimizing delays and errors, thereby cutting the cost of documentation and increasing transaction speed.

ii) Maintaining compliance

A typical trade finance transaction requires the constant update of documents especially those related to regulatory and financial policies. This results in numerous paperwork and an opportunity for errors leading to expensive fines and lawsuits. 

With a blockchain-based finance trade platform, all the necessary data is stored in a decentralized ledger for relevant parties to access. As such, it becomes easier to update the documents in compliance with the relevant authorities. 

iii) Transparency 

Since blockchain is decentralized, all involved parties in trade finance transactions can view and approve the necessary documents throughout the transactional cycle. What’s better, the ledger system can keep an account of all transactions including the past and the recent ones, all in a tamper-proof record. This way, it is easier for financial institutions to conduct an audit on all transactions, further reducing the risk of fraud. 

iv) Eliminates Double Spending 

Blockchain enables traders to initiate smart contracts which ensures that all trading procedures are dutifully executed. For importers, smart contracts ensure they only pay for the right amount of goods as ordered while ensuring the exporters don’t change the number of goods. As such, there won’t be a scenario where the importer spends more than what is documented in the original bill of lading. 

v) Tracking of Goods

One of the most classic applications of blockchain is in the supply chain, where it is applied to track goods and streamline the process. Trade finance’s intricate supply chain can therefore benefit a lot from the integration of blockchain into its logistics. As such, it’ll be easier for importers to track their goods and even mitigate potential delays, which increases confidence between trading partners. 

More advanced trade finance blockchain solutions also offer special tracking options such as weather conditions, temperature and safety of the goods. Such details are essential when shipping delicate or weather-sensitive goods. 

However, before blockchain can be fully integrated into the trade finance industry, there are a couple of improvements that should be made.

  • Interoperability

Currently, it is quite difficult to implement blockchain solutions in trade finance given that the parties involved often work independently. For blockchain to penetrate the trade finance industry, the global trading partners, financial institutions, shipping companies, and other key stakeholders need to talk in the same digital language. 

Unfortunately, to some of the parties involved, trade finance isn’t necessarily their highest priority. So, they might not be interested in switching to blockchain solutions. In the case of a bank, for instance, the financial support they provide to importers and exporters is just a piece of their larger service package. 

  • Security Vulnerabilities

Blockchain by itself is a secure technology leveraging the power of cryptography to safeguard all transactions, or rather data, recorded in the system. But, the technology has to be modified to suit the trade finance market. Usually, the modification is done using additional technologies and coding languages, which end up creating loopholes in the ledger’s security. 

  • Regulatory Barriers and Costs 

Blockchain is a new technology whose concepts and functionality hasn’t been adequately addressed by existing regulations. This explains why trade finance executives have a problem adopting blockchain solutions, despite their evidential benefits. 

Blockchain developers and entrepreneurs have also been on the receiving end of harsh government regulations, crippling their efforts in developing better blockchain solutions for trade finance. 

On top of it all, upgrading from the existing trade finance infrastructure to blockchain-based solutions is overly expensive. 

Conclusion 

Trade finance has for long played a huge role in the economic growth of every country. While it’s current framework serves the purpose, the industry could benefit from upgrading to blockchain, especially in the current modern times where most activities run on technology. Nonetheless, the success of blockchain technology in the trade finance industry hinges on the wide-scale adoption of the technology. 

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, May 13 – Bitcoin Pushing Towards 9,000; WBTC Larger than BTC’s Lightning Network

The cryptocurrency market has spent the past day mostly trading sideways, with some cryptocurrencies testing their support and resistance levels. Bitcoin is currently trading for $8,885, which represents an increase of 1.63% on the day. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 0.87% on the day, while XRP went up by 0.5%.

DigiByte took the position of today’s most prominent daily gainer, with gains of 27.28%. Status lost 8.32% of its daily value, making it the most prominent daily loser.

Bitcoin’s dominance moved up slightly since we last reported, with its value currently at 67.46%. This value represents a 0.29% difference to the upside.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization increased by a good portion when compared to yesterday’s value, with its current value being $243.85 billion. This value represents an increase of $5.1 billion when compared to yesterday’s value.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Lightning Network vs. WBTC on the Ethereum network

One thousand Wrapped Bitcoin were minted today on the Ethereum network. This transaction represents more US dollar value than the entire current Lightning Network. This transaction brings the total amount of Bitcoin locked in WBTC tokens to 2,300, which is quite a bit more than the 927 Bitcoin locked on the Lightning Network.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has seen an increase in bullish presence since yesterday. Bitcoin is trying to push through the ascending trend it was locked in for two days now. If the price breaks the trend and then succeeds in testing it positively, we can expect Bitcoin’s price to rise alongside with its volume.


While the best-case scenario would be an easy position to trade, the current state of Bitcoin does not show any strong possible positions to be opened at the moment.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $8,980                                          1: $8,820

2: $9,120                                           2: $8,650

3: $9,250                                            3: $8,000

Ethereum

Ethereum has been moving sideways for a couple of days now. It has been stable above the $185 support level but locked inside the descending trend. If nothing changes and Ethereum continues its sideways price action, it will eventually (forcefully) bump into the descending channel top line.


Ethereum’s volume is very low at the moment, while its RSI level is hovering above the value of 40.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $193.6                                            1: $185

2: $198                                              2: $178.65

3: $217.6                                            3: $167.8

Ripple

XRP has, just like Etheruem, been moving sideways for some time now. It is now, however, bound within any ascending or descending channels. Its sideways movement is accompanied by low volume and a stable RSI value. XRP’s next move will likely be caused by Bitcoin’s sharp price movement, as Bitcoin (at the moment) seems like it is much closer to making a move than XRP is.


Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.2                                               1: $0.19

2: $0.205                                           2: $0.178

3: $0.214                                            3: $0.147

 

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

What is BitTorrent (BTT)?

With blockchain came all manner of possibilities. From the ability to breed virtual cats, to tracking things from source to end. One blockchain project has a big vision: to decentralize the web. This project is Justin Sun’s Tron, and it aims to build a cost-effective, global, and digital content-sharing platform. 

BitTorrent is a project that already blazed the trail as far as decentralized content-sharing is concerned,  harking back to way before blockchain existed. 

With Tron’s grand ambition to decentralize the internet and BitTorrent’s protocol, there couldn’t be a better match than the two.

What is BitTorrent? 

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer communication protocol for transferring large files and data over the internet. Files can range from TV shows to movies, to songs, to video clips, and so on. 

The protocol is so widely used it accounted for 3.35% of the entire web in February 2013. To use BitTorrent, senders and receivers use any of Bitcoin clients, e.g., uTorrent qBittorent, Deluge, Zunlei Thunder, and several others. 

Created by programmer Bram Cohen in 2001, BitTorrent is used by 170 million people each month. 

How Does BitTorrent Work? 

The working of BitTorrent can be explained using the terminologies’ seeds’ and “leeches.’

Seeds are the people who host files, or ‘torrents’. Seeds usually break down the files into several pieces so users can download them faster. Anytime you’re downloading a file from a BitTorrent client, you receive different pieces of the file from multiple hosts or seeds. After you download a file, you’re encouraged to become a seed, too, in order to promote the network.

When you opt not to seed, you earn the title of a leech. The protocol relies on more people becoming seeds, which is why leeching is frowned upon. 

What is BTT Token? 

BTT is a crypto token that runs on the Tron Network, much like how ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum’s blockchain. The token is used to power file sharing through the BitTorrent protocol.

As the white paper puts it: “BTT acts as a general-purpose mechanism for transacting in computing resources shared between BitTorrent clients and a liquid market of service requestors and service providers.” 

BTT was created after BitTorrent was purchased by Justin Sun, founder of the Tron blockchain and cryptocurrency.  As Sun said in the press release: “In one giant leap, we can introduce blockchain to hundreds of millions of users around the world and empower a new generation of content creators with the tools to distribute their content directly to others on the web.”

What does the BTT Token Do?

After the BTT token was announced, many users questioned its necessity since BitTorrent has been in existence for long, and users can use the protocol without the need for a token. 

So, why does the crypto world need the token? 

First of all, BitTorrent users can now pay for faster download speeds – with the BTT token. Currently, anyone can download files using the BitTorrent protocol via any of its clients for free. This will not change after BTT. The only difference is the token will incentivize individuals to share more data. 

This will work through users paying BTT to hosts in order to get faster download speeds. The idea is that this incentivizing mechanism will help improve the overall efficiency of the BTT protocol: faster speeds, higher quality, and improved content. This will improve the experience of everyone involved.

Another use of BTT is users will be able to purchase priority access to hosts. Instead of being lumped together with other users, you can buy faster and better-tailored services. Moreover, you get continued access to files as well as the use of others’ resources in the network. This matters, since usually, a user has no incentive to continue hosting a file after download. But with the BTT token in play, they can keep hosting the file on the network. 

For more details on the usability of the token, check out Sun’s explanation in this YouTube video.

Tokenomics of BTT

BTT has a total supply of 990, 000, 000, 000. The coins were distributed as follows:

  • 20% went to the TRON foundation
  • 19.9% went to the BitTorrent’s ecosystem
  • 19% went to the BitTorrent team and the BitTorrent foundation
  • 17% was distributed to the public
  • 10.1% went to Tron’s airdrop program
  • 10% went to the BitTorrent airdrop program
  • 4% remained as partnership tokens

The coin is currently trading at $0.000250 with a market cap of $53 million while ranking at #81 by market cap. It has a 24-hour volume of $70 million and a circulating supply of 212, 116, 500, 000. BTT had an all-time low of $0.000139 on March 13, 2020, and an all-time high of $0.0011861 on May 28, 2019, according to Coinmarketcap.

History of BitTorrent

Bram Cohen, an American programmer, is the brain behind BitTorrent. He created the protocol in 2001, going on to release an updated version in 2013. In June 2018, Tron founder Justin Sun bought it for $120 million in its bid to expand Project Atlas – an initiative by the Tron project to decentralize the internet with the power of blockchain. 

After the deal, BitTorrent soon conducted an initial exchange offering (IEO) via Binance’s Launchpad program, raising $7.2 million in a record 15 minutes. 

Where to Buy and Store BTT 

You can buy BTT form an endless list of exchanges, including Binance, Huobi, Cat.Ex, CoinEX, UpBit, Bithumb, Poloniex, and so on.

Some exchanges will allow you to buy the token with Fiat, while in others, it’s only available in exchange for cryptos such as BTC, BNB, ETH, XRP, and so on. 

Since BTT is a TRC-token, you can store it in any wallet that supports TRX. Some popular options include Bitpie, Ledger, Atomic, Exodus, Math, Hoo, and so on. You can find the full list of choices on Tron’s website

Final Thoughts

The BTT token will tokenize the already successful BitTorrent network and, in so doing, improve its functionality in several ways. Some may see the whole thing as an attempt to reinvent the wheel. Others think it’s a  fresh idea. The crypto community just has to wait and see how this one plays out. 

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

How Can the Energy Industry Benefit from Blockchain?

Blockchain is usually perceived as only the building block of the much-hyped virtual currencies. As such, it wouldn’t seem like there is much technology can do for the energy industry. After all, what do cryptocurrencies have to do with the process of generating and distributing electrical power?

But from an insider’s look, blockchain has the potential to spur growth in the energy sector through its transformative benefits. More so, the energy industry is constantly changing – as seen from the entry of new innovations such as smart metering, electric vehicles, and renewable sources of energy. As such, blockchain technology is a viable solution to help improve efficiency in the industry. 

Ways Blockchain can be used in the Energy Industry.

Blockchain technology promotes transparency and immutability of stored data through its decentralized nature as a ledger system. These characteristics can be beneficial to the complex network of participants in the energy distribution chain, who often suffer from siloed infrastructures and unexpected inefficiencies. 

Here is a detailed look into six major benefits blockchain brings in to the energy industry; 

i) Improved Data Management 

Being a ledger system, blockchain can serve as a database providing users with secure and real-time energy usage data. Other important energy statistics, such as market prices, marginal costs, and fuel prices, can also be stored in the system to allow users to monitor how much they spend on energy. 

Additionally, the blockchain-based database system makes it impossible to corrupt the stored data, which helps enhance transparency. This saves energy providers as well as customers the financial costs associated with accidental clerical errors and intentional data manipulation.

ii) Peer-to-peer Energy Trading 

Over the last few years, energy production has shifted from large, centralized power plants to smaller power generation sources such as windmills and solar farms. This is especially true in “distributed energy grid” systems where electricity is generated and stored by small power plants that are connected to the larger electric grid. 

The integration of blockchain into the system allows the smaller farms to sell excess power to other consumers, decentralizing the energy distribution network. Essentially, the technology creates a peer-to-peer energy market, reducing the role of wholesale and central authorities entities. This helps promote competitive market prices.

iii)Enhance Commodity Trading 

Commodity trading in the energy sector involves massive ledger systems that keep account of the commodity prices at specific moments. Maintaining, securing, and updating these records requires significant resources in terms of money and time, which could otherwise be used to improve other core areas of the trading cycle. 

Applying blockchain technology to commodity trading makes it easier and more affordable to securely record trading data as compared to traditional ledger systems.

iv) Tokenizing Energy

Blockchain can be used to create tokens for use within the energy industry. One of the uses of these tokens is to facilitate a variety of energy market transactions, such as paying bills directly to the provider without involving an intermediary.

In addition to being a medium of payment, the tokens can also serve as an incentive. For instance, by tokenizing the energy grid, consumers can earn tokens for reducing energy wastage in their households. 

Similarly, a tokenized energy grid means that energy is expended depending on household needs. This not only helps with the reduction of energy wastage but also cuts down on utility bills since consumers pay for the exact amount of power they need.

v) Propel Clean Energy as a Mainstream Option 

As governments and environmental activists advocate for clean energy, blockchain can be used to promote the use of renewable energy. This can be achieved by creating a blockchain-based smart grid that allows consumers to compare and choose their energy providers. The transparency in energy choices facilitates the integration of clean energy in the market, where renewables could become consumers’ favorite choice due to their affordability. 

The State of Blockchain in the Energy Industry

Currently, blockchain hasn’t fully permeated the energy industry despite its promising benefits. This is not to say that there aren’t any blockchain-based projects carving a niche for themselves in the vast energy market. In fact, some of them have even partnered with their respective governments to improve service delivery.

However, a good number of blockchain projects are still under development and are yet to materialize their solutions. Their delayed success can be attributed to the following challenges:

  • Conservative Industry Players

Success in an older industry like energy demands solid working experience and knowledge, considering that it’s intertwined with other complex sectors such as law and finance. Therefore, blockchain entrepreneurs need an insider’s insight on how blockchain can be beneficial to the energy industry.

Unfortunately, those with vast working experience and market knowledge of the energy industry aren’t inclined to blockchain solutions. They prefer old hat solutions which have served them fairly well for long. Probably, as the crypto space matures, key industry players in the energy sector will warm up to blockchain solutions. In the meantime, educating the stakeholders on the benefits of blockchain might be helpful.

  • Legacy Gatekeepers 

The integration of blockchain into the energy industry will result in a decentralized market. While such a marketplace is beneficial to the consumers, it threatens the existence of major banks and businesses who, for years, have benefited as intermediaries. Even without taking out their role as the middleman, their control will be diluted once blockchain enters the industry. As such, the industry giants are committed to slowing down the integration of blockchain into the energy industry so as to retain their control over the market. 

  • Strict Government Regulations 

Blockchain has been met with the same type of austerity measures that are imposed on virtual currencies. Likewise, the global energy market, being one of the highly regulated industries in the world, hasn’t been easy on blockchain technology either. It gets even worse knowing that the industry is run by conservative stakeholders who are skeptical about blockchain technology. As such, designing a blockchain solution that can find favor among industry players and energy-sector regulators is quite difficult. 

Conclusion 

Blockchain is a relatively new technology whose awareness is limited to the tech-savvy population. So, the idea of this technology finding use outside the cryptocurrency market is still catching on. In an older industry such as the energy sector, the technology will certainly take time before industry players see it as a solution to existing problems. Hopefully, as aggressive blockchain developers continue to design solutions for the industry, their solutions might serve as the entry point of blockchain into the energy industry. 

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic Crypto Education

The Bitcoin Halving Aftermath – Trends and Implications

The third Bitcoin halving event, which happened on May 11, brought mining rewards from 12.5 BTC down to 6.25 BTC per block. This halving raised many questions, mostly on the topic of how the price will react to the halving and if Bitcoin has already “priced in” the halving.

Many analysts have made their predictions, ranging from Peter Shiff’s bearish prediction of Bitcoin going to 0 due to it having no underlying value and utility, all the way to some analysts who called for $1,000,000 Bitcoin. However, the market should pay attention to the short-term price implications and trends, as well as tools that can measure them.

What does the public say?

We can have a general representation of what the public thinks about when it comes to the Bitcoin halving by looking at Google Trends.

While a brief check of the term “bitcoin halving” will show an enormous increase in interest, we don’t know where that interest is coming from (in a non-geographical sense). We have to dive deeper and see if the ones interested in the halving are existing investors or rather new ones.

If we take a look at the number of searches for the terms “buy bitcoin” and “sell bitcoin” we can see that there hasn’t been much of an increase from before the halving, though some difference exists (“buy bitcoin” and “sell bitcoin” charts look almost exactly the same, so there is no need to show both).

We can also spot one more difference between the two pictures above, and that is countries with the most interest in these terms. While the term “bitcoin halving” sees most interest from highly-developer countries such as Switzerland, Netherlands, and Austria, “buy bitcoin” and “sell bitcoin” terms see the greatest interests from less developed countries or countries that have inflation problems.

We can also see that the Fear and Greed Index does not show any signs of a mega-optimistic market that could spark up an explosive price increase that happened after the first two halvings either.

What does all this mean?

This analysis brings us to the conclusion that, while there is an enormous interest in the bitcoin halving itself, it mostly comes from already existing cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Meanwhile, people that are interested in buying and selling Bitcoin are mostly coming from unstable regions and use Bitcoin as a “monetary escape” from their native currencies’ inflation rather than as an investment opportunity, which got that much better due to the halving.

This analysis does not claim that there is no new interest in Bitcoin, but that people should be conservative with their short-term predictions, as the crypto market will most likely not see such an explosive price increase as it has seen after the previous two halvings. However, the price is bound to increase over time due to the natural laws of supply and demand, though that price increase may be slow and gradual.

Today’s crypto market major flaw

While the Bitcoin market has its ups and downs, it prides itself on being revolutionary, as it strives to unite the world under one decentralized deflationary currency with a fixed supply. However, financial institutions such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have created the Bitcoin Futures market, which may prove to be detrimental to the future of cryptocurrencies.

While these financial institutions are well-known and bring more interest to Bitcoin, they trade Bitcoin futures that do not settle in Bitcoin, meaning that they trade thin air that is correlated to Bitcoin through their platform. This causes a major problem to the actual Bitcoin community as it essentially “prints” Bitcoin and creates a place for infinite supply as well as price manipulation.

When talking about the Bitcoin halving, its main purpose is to act as a deflationary force. However, with Bitcoin futures not having to care about the Bitcoin supply whatsoever, the deflationary effect of the Bitcoin halving gets drastically reduced.

How to approach Bitcoin investing?

The cryptocurrency market is a space where people invest their money because of two main reasons:

  1. Speculation (they want to leverage the volatility of the markets and make a profit and do not care about Bitcoin’s “mission”)
  2. Support (they truly believe in the technology and want to make a profit by “betting” on the future)

In both cases, the fundamental reason for investing in the market is profit. Miners mine for profit, traders trade for profit, everyone is here to make a bit of money. However, many people get stuck in a certain mindset (which is especially the case with Bitcoin bulls or bears) and stick to it no matter the market circumstances, which ultimately makes them lose money in the long run.

People should approach crypto trading and investing with caution and without emotion. They should assess the circumstances and use the tools at their disposal (as well as the market sentiment) to create the best prediction of where the market will move. They should also expect less and less explosiveness as time passes. However, the Bitcoin halving is certainly a solid indicator of where the price might move in the future, simply due to the natural “laws” of how self-sustaining markets work.

 

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Crypto Daily Topic

Is Quadratic Voting the Path to Fair Governance?

The current world’s state of affairs could use more representation, more equity, and more fairness. From disproportionate distribution of resources to corruption to inequalities to the monopolization of technologies for the benefit of the wealthy, the current system is massively fractured. Unfortunately, these issues get trampled on as people lack a clear voice with which to voice their disenfranchisement. 

Voting has always been the way in which we express our preferred choices in issues that matter to us. But that doesn’t mean voting in itself is fair or democratic enough. 

Quadratic Voting

Quadratic voting (QV)  is a novel model of voting that places emphasis on how strongly voters feel about an issue, rather than how many of them prefer a particular choice. QV can ensure that the voice of smaller groups is not stifled by the ‘tyranny of majority.’ It can be used in elections, institutions, governance, blockchain-based decision making, and so on. 

Why ‘Quadratic’? And How Does it Work?

“Quadratic” implies squared or multiplied by self. 

In quadratic voting, each participant is given the same number of credits with which they can use to vote on an issue. The first casting will cost one credit. The cost of additional votes is quadratic, not linear. This means the marginal cost for casting more than one vote is far higher than that for casting one vote. 

The formula for quadratic voting is as follows: 

Cost to voter = (Number of votes) to the power of 2. 

So, quadratically, one vote will cost you one credit, two votes cost you four credits, three votes will cost you nine credits, four votes will cost you 16 credits, and so on. 

Each person is given a maximum of a certain number of credits.

Let’s imagine in this example that everyone is given a maximum of 25 credits. This way, you can vote on 25 small issues, or you can vote five times on an issue that you really care about. In any case, you use all your votes. This will prevent participants with higher buying power from buying the most votes and potentially influence the outcome unfairly. 

The idea is that while everyone gets to increase the chances for their preferred issue winning, the quadratic nature of the vote ensures that those who care the most about a particular issue are the ones who will cast the most votes for them. 

The History of Quadratic Voting 

The idea of QV harks back the 70’s and is credited to Vickrey, Clarke, and Groves (VCG).  While the idea was met with enthusiasm, what’s known as the VCG mechanism was not robust enough to be implemented, and the idea lay dormant for many years. 

The current, sufficiently robust QV was rediscovered by Glen Weyl in 2012, who then began working on it with Steven Lalley and Eric Posner. 

Weyl has also expanded the idea in his book “Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society.” 

Enter Blockchain 

Blockchain – thanks to its immutability, decentralization, and transparency, fits in perfectly with the ideas of quadratic voting. It can ensure a transparent, tamper-proof voting process. But when meshed with the idea of QV, such a process is even fairer. 

Weyl linked up with Vitalik Buterin, the creator and Ethereum, and the pair, together with Harvard economist Zoe Hitzig, published a paper titled “Liberal Radicalism: A Flexible Design for Philanthropic Matching Funds. The paper delves further into the idea and illuminates how quadratic voting can help achieve more egalitarian societies. 

Application of QV: Colorado Use Case

Quadratic voting was used by Democrats in Colorado to decide which appropriation bills to give precedence. 

Legislators were allocated 15 tokens for each to use on their preferred 15 bills. This, however, didn’t work well. They then sought help from Weyl, who explained how QV could provide a solution.  

According to Weyl, QV is a solution to the “tyranny of the majority” issue. Traditional voting assumes that every participant cares the same way for an issue, which is mostly not true. In truth, some people care deeply about an issue; others care moderately, while others do not care at all. 

In the Colorado scenario, each legislator was allocated 100 tokens. If a legislator voted more than once for an issue, it would cost them one token for each. In this way, legislators were able to prioritize issues that they particularly cared about the most. The Colorado QV experiment was largely seen as a success. 

How does Quadratic Voting Differ From Traditional Voting Systems? 

In order to get a clearer view of QV, let’s get a look at other voting systems. 

First-Past-the-Post: In this system, a candidate can win without necessarily getting the majority of the people to vote for them. For example, candidate A can get 40% of the votes, B, 36%, C, 28%, and D, 15%. While A wins, we know they got the most votes, but not the majority of the votes. 

Proportional Voting: This voting system seeks to remedy the uninclusive nature of first-past-the-post voting. Here, if 40% of the electorate votes for a particular party, then 40% of seats in the legislature will be given to that party. However, this system of voting is not applicable when binary decisions,e.g., yes or no, have to be made. 

Ranked Choice Voting: In this system, each voter ranks their preferred candidates. The candidate with the least amount of votes is eliminated in each round, with their votes redistributed to the rest of the candidates in the next round. Although this model might be fairer, it’s extremely complex and time-consuming. 

Quadratic Voting: Quadratic voting is fairly complex too, but arguably, it best fairly represents the interests of small groups of people who care deeply about an issue. By marginally increasing the cost of each additional vote, it disincentivizes people who don’t particularly care about an issue from voting for it. It also allows voters to demonstrate just how strongly they feel about an issue – at the expense of foregoing voting on other issues on the table. 

Why is QV Uniquely Effective? 

QV eliminates the problem of ‘tyranny of the majority’ and ‘tyranny of the wealth majority.’ The first means that even though a majority of people may vote on an issue, the final result does not necessarily reflect the participants’ wishes since the level of passion for each voter differs from the next. 

The second problem means the wealthy minority is better positioned to buy more votes and hence will unfairly skew the vote in their favor. 

QV rectifies these potential pitfalls by taking into consideration the strength of each participant’s choice. It also enforces a limit on the number of voting credits so participants can use those credits for the issues they truly care about. 

The Drawbacks of Quadratic Voting 

As much as quadratic voting is this novel, revolutionary idea, it has its own drawbacks. 

First, it’s extremely dependent on identity. For it to function, it needs a reliable identity system. As it is, identity management is already a challenge to implement. In this age of the internet, it’s all too easy to fake accounts, which involves a user trying to exert undue influence on an issue. 

Second, the world is moving towards more anonymity. Due to this,  transparent QV will not be suitable for all applications or contexts. 

Conclusion

Already, the blockchain has provided a transparent, public, and decentralized platform for collective decision-making. But if we’re to have truly fair processes, that will not suffice. Quadratic voting represents an opportunity to leverage on blockchain and allow voters to express not just their preferences, but the intensity of those preferences. 

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Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, May 12 – Bitcoin Halving Fundamentals and the Crypto Market Price Reaction

The cryptocurrency market has spent the past day preparing for the Bitcoin halving event. While there was some price uncertainty, it eventually turned out to be a pretty stable day. Bitcoin is currently trading for $8,680, which represents a decrease of 0.07% on the day. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 0.07% on the day, while XRP went down by 0.61%.

ReddCoin took the position of today’s most prominent daily gainer, with gains of 31.95%. 0x lost 11.75% of its daily value, making it the most prominent daily loser.

Bitcoin’s dominance stayed at the same place since we last reported, with its value currently at 67.17%. This value represents a 0.08% difference to the downside.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization stayed at the same place when compared to yesterday’s value, with its current value being $238.75 billion. This value represents a decrease of $0.99 billion when compared to yesterday’s value.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Bitcoin Halving

With Bitcoin finishing its halving event, investors are expecting to see a market response. However, the past 24 hours have been pretty uneventful when it comes to price movement. Analysts are mostly bullish in the long run but concerned in the short-term as Bitcoin is still in a downtrend that started near the end of 2017.

On the other hand, if we take a look at the fundamentals, Bitcoin has improved greatly since the last halving. The number of small Bitcoin addresses with less than 0.01 BTC after the third halving increased by 235% when compared to the second halving that occurred in July 2016.

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Technical analysis

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Bitcoin

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap has undergone its third halving event, cutting miner’s incentive in half. The price did not immediately react and the day went pretty uneventful price-wise. Bitcoin remains bound between the $8,650 support and $8,820 resistance levels as well as within a small ascending trend.


Traders may expect a breakout to either side to be a great opportunity. However, Bitcoin, in its current position, is almost impossible to trend due to how narrow the range is.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $8,820                                           1: $8,650

2: $8,980                                           2: $8,000

3: $9,120                                            3: $7,750

Ethereum

Ethereum seemingly stopped its downtrend and started moving sideways. Its price is currently held up by the $185 support level, which is of great importance for quite some time now. However, we still have to consider Ethereum being short-term bearish as it is still stuck within a descending trend. Only after it goes above the descending channel, it may be considered neutral or bullish.


Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $193.6                                            1: $185

2: $198                                              2: $178.65

3: $217.6                                            3: $167.8

Ripple

XRP followed the market and spent an uneventful day as well, as all the eyes were looking at Bitcoin. The third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap started moving sideways right above the $0.19 level. However, the fact that it started making lower lows with each move makes it a bit scary for the XRP bulls. With that being said, XRP is quite stable at this price, as $0.19 is considered a strong support level.


XRP’s volume is on the lower side of the spectrum, while its RSI is at the value of 36.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.2                                               1: $0.19

2: $0.205                                           2: $0.178

3: $0.214                                            3: $0.147

 

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Crypto Guides

Understanding Market Speculations In The Cryptocurrency Market

Introduction

Market speculation is a term that can put you in a bad light if discussed with a casual investor. People often relate speculation to the irresponsible behavior of the banks and financial institutions. To a layman, this term is nothing but a synonym for gambling. The only difference being, in gambling, personal money is used, not investor money.

The concept of speculation is misunderstood by many. Agreed that investing is all about balancing the risk to reward ratio, but speculation is no different. It is an anticipation that the risk on the investment is going to be well worth the risk. In this article, we shall be clearly understanding the concept of market speculation and determine if it is evil to the cryptocurrency market.

What is Speculation?

Trading and investing involve the managing of risk and return. Speculation is that space that fits in the area opposite of guaranteed investors, like bonds and other safe havens. Be it any type of investment; there involves risk. The risk cannot be completely eliminated but surely be reduced. Typically, an investment with low-risk yields low returns. Similarly, investments with relatively high risk, the payout is equally high. And speculation work with the latter principle.

Myth – Speculation is Gambling

There are still a lot with the conception that speculation is no different from gambling. Gambling could involve some skill elements but certainly cannot cut off the risk on it. It is basically like a game of dice. Considering the die to be unbiased, the probability of a predicted number coming up always remains 1/6. Speculation, on the other hand, involves high research in the background, where the speculator studies and analyses all the risks involved in it, and then take actions accordingly. Also, when they bet on something involving high risk, they try making sure that the odds are in their favor.

Cryptocurrency Speculation

Cryptocurrency speculation is mostly inclined towards Bitcoin as it was the first cryptocurrency in the market. Back then, only a handful of people predicted the exponential rise of Bitcoin from a few cents to thousands of dollars. However, there was a good number of investors who made a fortune off this move. In the ocean of investors, there are the ones who anticipate a high return from a small investment, in short, the speculators.

Cryptocurrencies are those that seem like they are specifically made for speculative purposes. And these cryptocurrencies are unlike the tulip bulbs of old that would turn out to be a scam. Bitcoin, for example, is a cryptocurrency known for its security and trust as it backed up blockchain technology. Since the cryptocurrency market is fresh and new relative to others, speculators can consider it a great opportunity to bet on their chosen coins.

Conclusion

Market speculators from the very beginning have earned a bad name. This misconception is still in the air. As a trader/investor, you have to be conservative, but it does not mean you cannot be a risk-taker. Taking risks during the right times and on the right securities can turn out to be a moneymaker. And this is what successful are onto.

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Crypto Guides

Cryptocurrency Inheritance – What Happens To Your Cryptos When You Die?

Introduction

Ever imagined what would happen to your cryptocurrency when you die? In the case of land or property, it typically goes to the person’s children or to the ones mentioned by them. And all this happens legally with proper documentation. But it does not work the same way with a person’s cryptocurrency.

In cryptocurrencies, inheritance does exist but is pretty different from the regulated ones. Now, let’s understand the inheritance in cryptos keeping in the sense of the decentralization and anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies.

Though cryptocurrencies are not regulated officially, it does not mean you can let go off the unused coins. They do have value in themselves, and also if converted to fiat currencies. According to estimates, Bitcoins worth $20 billion is already lost and not in use. This could be due to negligence or the death of the owner without anyone’s knowledge that the person had coins in their portfolio.

Furthermore, a Reddit user created a spreadsheet accounting the wallet addresses, which were inactive since the time each Bitcoin was worth below $10. And in 2015, there were more than 3 million Bitcoins that were left untouched.

Ways to Not Let Cryptocurrency Unused

Dead Man’s Switch

In the case of cryptos, there exists a computer program that emails you at specific intervals and waits for your reply. If the program does not receive any reply from the sent email, it then automatically checks for death certificates of the account holder. If it finds such a record and does not receive any email, the program will transfer the coins in the wallet to the specified wallet mentioned by the account holder during the time of set up.

However, there is a downside to it. Even though it is helpful in cryptocurrency inheritance, there can be a scenario when an alive user does not reply to an email, and the computer protocol transfers away from the cryptocurrency to the specified address.

Doing the Traditional Way

This is a technique that does not require any kind of computer technology. This is the simplest inheritance issue where the user writes down all the wallet credentials and hands it over to their beneficiary. The credentials may contain the private key, exchange login detail, and the fiat currency accounts associated with it.

However, storing all the information in one place may not be the ideal option. It could turn out to be a very high price paid just for the convenience. Finally, it all drops down to trust. There must be trust between the account holder and the beneficiary. This is because the beneficiary could tamper with the credentials even before the death of the user. Hence, users must be choosy before handing over the details.

Conclusion

There are several ways to ensure that your coins are not buried with you and are handed over to your loved ones. But, with all of them, there exists a downside to it, which makes you think again on handing away the coins to someone. This has made cryptocurrency inheritance still tricky to deal with.

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Crypto Guides

A Quick Introduction to Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

Introduction

The blockchain technology has been in the industry for quite a while. Cryptocurrencies were the first ones to experience the taste of blockchain technology. As years passed, many technologies were being prototyped using blockchain. Then came Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. Many blockchain geeks would already be aware of it, while the rest are still clueless about this concept though they’ve heard it. So, if you are still one of those who doesn’t understand DAO, then this article might help.

What is DAO?

The meaning of DAO lies in its name. DAO is an organization that is both decentralized and autonomous. Back then, it was only an idea but became practical with the assistance of blockchain.

As mentioned, DAOs are organizations that run in a decentralized and autonomous fashion. In other words, they operate without a centralized party that makes decisions. In fact, all the growth and profit are managed without any central authority. When it implemented via blockchain technology, they are bound to follow programmatic rules that are granted through consensus.

DAOs can, in fact, be related to mainstream companies, as both have predefined goals. However, the goals of mainstream companies can be altered and may not be enforced. But in the case of DAOs, the goals are digitally enforced, and hence no alteration is possible.

Let’s consider an example illustrated by Mike Hearn to visualize the concept of DAO. He objectified DAO to a driverless car that acts like a taxi. It charges the passengers as a rental. After the journey, the profits are used to fuel the car at the gas station. In the whole process, the car does not require any human effort to figure out what to do, as everything is programmed initially.

Key Features of DAO

The first feature is obviously the autonomous nature of DAO. This means that any outside forces cannot corrupt a deployed function. In addition, their open-source nature makes it transparent. This eliminates the doubt for a trusted third party. There are tokens of all transactions, which are used for rewarding. With the non-hierarchical structure of DAO, all the funding takes place only during development and is distributed equally.

The Reason of Existence

Apart from a predefined goal, DAOs contrast with other organizations. In the present world, every organization out there is centralized. So, the only reason for the existence of DAOs is to take advantage of a highly efficient, autonomous, and decentralized system of governance. If organizations work like the DAOs, then there would be no time wastage and effort from an intermediary to control the organization. Instead, all the work would be done by itself.

The Advantage Over Traditional Governance

Governance simply refers to the interaction between various entities based on specific rules and norms and on how they are regulated and structured. Every governance in a company follows a top-down approach. In such an approach, there arises issues and dilemmas. For example, an agent can make a decision with their own choice as a result would not affect them.

If the decision turns out to be risky for business and expensive, the one to suffer would be the principal (a higher position), not the agent from a lower position. But, with DAOs, the costs, as well as the principal-agent dilemma, would be reduced because DAOs utilize smart contracts and blockchain technology in its working.

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Crypto Guides

Four Best Use Cases Of Blockchain For Governments

Introduction

Blockchain platforms have proven themselves to be not only a platform to create and exchange cryptocurrencies but much more than that. Further, these platforms are not limited to only financial workspaces, but much more can be achieved. In this article, let us see the applications of blockchain in government institutions.

Budgetary Use Cases

I am starting the article with budgetary use case as this is very close to my heart to achieve a corruption-free world. Every government around the world has its budgetary sessions for every financial year. As per the allocations, the amount is released to each department as required. Based on the amount announced for the department, they have to design a blueprint on how the funds will be utilized for the year and all the minor details like contractors, vendors; payments should be finalized to incorporate the same in a smart contract.

Once all the details are completed, the smart contract can be launched. Everyone will be paid accordingly when predefined conditions are met. Thus, achieving a corruption field. Once a smart contract is deployed, it would be difficult to change any conditions. Hence this is a bit complex to implement, but the stakes are quite high since we envision a corruption-free world.

Digitizing The Documents

Every government has many departments often divided between state and central. Most of the governments are digitizing the records as of now. It will be an excellent use case of blockchain if the digitized materials are stored in the blockchain. Often the documents should be shared amongst immigration authorities, defense, homeland security, many more departments. A lot of paperwork and permissions should be sorted out to get adequate information, which is very time-consuming.

If all these documents are stored in the blockchain, it would be effortless to transfer the materials. The document should be shared using the only blockchain. Every view of the document from other departments can be stored as transactions; transaction approvals can be saved as different transactions. Thus, everything will be recorded. This is very useful to avoid any loss or tampering of the documents.

Voting

Voting is crucial for any democratic country to run smoothly at predefined intervals of time. There are huge limitations when it comes to conducting voting securely without any fraud. If blockchain is implemented for voting, that can be changed. Each vote can be converted into a smart contract and display the transactions publicly for everyone to view. Moscow has its voting platform on Ethereum.

They have implemented blockchain voting for urban and landscape design. Half a million people have voted their ideas for public transport, plantations, and materials to be used. Though the platform isn’t used for political polls, the success is a considerable achievement to develop blockchain for voting a full-fledged manner.

Identity

Almost all the governments around the globe have some unique identification numbers for their citizens. Social security numbers for Americans and Aadhar numbers for Indians are some examples. These identification numbers contain the most sensitive information of the citizens of a country like tax returns, income details, retina scans, fingerprints, and so much more.

If these details are hacked somehow, it would be a massive setback for the governments as it is a concern of people’s security. Hence, it is essential to safeguard such information in blockchain so that every view by different authorities can be permissioned and stored using transactions.

These are some of the use cases in government institutions where blockchain will be beneficial to enhance the efficiency and working of the government.

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Crypto Daily Topic

Bitcoin’s Third Halving: Here’s what to expect

Bitcoin’s third halving will take place today around 6.50 pm GMT. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $8783.94, with 18, 374, 362 bitcoins in circulation. The halving will take place at block height 630,000. At the time of writing, we’re at block height 629, 951. The halving will see mining block rewards reduced from the current 12.5BTC to 6.25 BTC. 

What is Bitcoin Mining? 

Before we look at the concept of halving and what it’s all about, we need to first understand what Bitcoin mining is, since each depends on the other. 

Bitcoin mining is the process through which people utilize their computing power to process transactions on the Bitcoin network. These people are called miners. 

Anyone can mine Bitcoin. However, the mining process requires a ton of power – thanks to the cryptographic nature of Bitcoin, which requires massive computational resources to verify and confirm transactions. It’s also the reason why Bitcoin mining requires specialized mining equipment known as application-specific integrated circuits, which require significant capital to set up. As a result, Bitcoin mining is done mostly in places with low-cost electricity, with a significant majority of miners stationed in rural China.

Proof-of-Work

Bitcoin uses a ‘proof-of-work’ protocol to verify and confirm transactions. Proof-of-work requires miners to prove they have invested effort in the processing of transactions. This effort includes the time and computational resources to perform the ‘guesswork” of a string of numbers until one finds the right combination (hash) that will unlock the next block. (A block is a file containing transactions and the metadata of those transactions.) Once a block is discovered, the transactions therein are added to the blockchain. 

Miners also protect the Bitcoin network by making it hard to attack. An attack on the network would constitute gaining control of more than 51% of the network hash power. However, the more miners on the network, the harder it is for a bad actor to gain control of the network. 

What is Bitcoin Halving? 

The Bitcoin protocol is programmed to reward miners with bitcoins for every block discovered and for securing the Bitcoin network. Miners are rewarded with bitcoins and transaction fees. 

After every 210, 000 blocks, these rewards are cut in half, which is known as halving or as Bitcoiners have christened it for effect: “halvening.” As a result, the number of the bitcoins that are released into circulation are also halved. This is Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s way of preventing inflation for Bitcoin. 

This process is set to take place until around 2140, which will mark the reaching of Bitcoin’s maximum supply. By the time we get there, mining rewards will have significantly dwindled. 

What then will keep them on? Satoshi already covered this. As mining rewards diminish, the network is programmed so that transaction fees will increase.  This will ensure that miners still have the incentive to continue running and protecting the network. 

Why is Halving Significant?

Bitcoin’s halving is significant because it keeps Bitcoin’s supply under deflationary control. This is one of the key differences between Bitcoin and traditional currencies  – which have an infinite supply and thus prone to inflation. For instance, what the US dollar was worth ten years ago is not what it’s worth now. 

There will only ever be 32 Bitcoin halvings, after which no more bitcoins will be released. This will mark the reaching of the maximum supply of Bitcoin. 

In 2009, the reward for Bitcoin mining was 50 bitcoins. After the first halving, which happened in 2012, the mining rewards fell to 25, then to 12.5 in 2016, and today, it will fall to 6.25. 

This model helps drive up demand for Bitcoin. To illustrate this, let’s imagine the amount of gold existing on earth was halved every few years. If the amount of gold was halved after every few years, then it’s conceivably certain that its demand would increase in response. 

Bitcoin’s halving is supposed to set off this chain reaction: 

Reward halving →  Circulation is halved → Supply decreases → Demand increases → Price increases → Transaction fees increases → Miner’s incentive remains, as the value of Bitcoin increases. 

Past Halving Effects on Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s past halvings were, naturally, characterized by a media buzz that increased awareness for Bitcoin. After each event, Bitcoin saw a significant increase in demand in the following year. Whether this surge was occasioned by the halving is still a point of debate. 

In the first halving, which took place in November 2012, Bitcoin was trading at $11. By the end of  2013, it was trading at nearly $1150. The second halving was in July of 2016, at which the currency traded at $650. By the end of the following year, Bitcoin’s value had skyrocketed to nearly $20,000. 

Will the third halving have any effect on Bitcoin’s price? The Bitcoin community is divided on that.

How Different is this Halving? 

Past Bitcoin halvings occurred in a relatively ‘normal’ environment. Today’s Bitcoin halving will happen in a relatively different set of circumstances.

First of all, we now have Bitcoin derivatives, such as stock options and futures. More people are now aware of the existence of cryptocurrencies. The wild spikes of 2017 lent Bitcoin so much clout that made it a household name. 

We also have another entirely unprecedented situation in the midst of the halving: the Coronavirus pandemic, which is shaking the world’s economy to its foundations and threatening a recession only rivaled by The Great Recession of 2008.

As we move forward, it remains to be seen whether the pandemic will muffle a price surge, or whether Bitcoin will defy the gloomy economic forecast. The currency has so far exhibited signs of bowing under pressure, but Bitcoin enthusiasts and investors are betting on a turnaround after the halving. 

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Crypto Daily Topic

Times Bitcoin Has Featured in Pop Culture

Times are gone when Bitcoin was a fringe currency and a fleeting phenomenon not worth much attention. Today, the cryptocurrency has broken into the spotlight and rallied an entire industry of cryptocurrencies into the center of finance. So much that even pop culture has started paying attention. 

From songs to films to TV shows, cryptocurrency is being featured in various ways in the entertainment industry. And crypto fans are lapping it all up since it’s helping to push the industry to the forefront. 

Here are times crypto has featured in pop culture

i) Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse (Movie)

In the animated Spiderman movie, a ticker at the bottom of the screen announces: ‘Bitcoin hits a new low’ immediately followed by ‘Bitcoin hits a new high.’ The split-second scene is inspired by Bitcoin’s infamous volatility while also poking fun at it. It seems that Bitcoin shoots and plummets within nanoseconds in Spider-Verse. Either way, it’s nice to see Bitcoin exists in alternative universes.

ii) Eminem – Not Alike (Song)

The veteran rapper has not been left behind by the Bitcoin craze. In his 10th studio album released in 2018, Eminem references the cryptocurrency in the song “Not Alike,” singing: “Remember everybody used to bite nickel, now everybody doing Bitcoin.”

iii) The OA (Angel of Death) (Netflix Series)

Fan-favorite series The OA features not just cryptocurrency but also a crypto wallet. In the pilot episode, an elderly woman seeks the help of a detective to find her missing granddaughter. But she has no money, at least in the traditional sense. Instead, she has Ethereum, which is stored in Ethereum wallet Freewallet on her phone. The wallet displays her Ethereum balance. 

iv) Hunt for Wolverine – Adamantium Agenda (Movie) 

Marvel’s 2018 movie: Hunt for Wolverine – Adamantium Agenda mentions Bitcoin. At one point, Tony Stark needs to make payments. Due to the risk of the characters he’s dealing with, the assumption is that he will use the usual untraceable cash. But this time, he must use cryptocurrency. 

v) Pop Music

New on the scene, the Japanese girl group: Kasotsuka Shojo’s name translates to ‘Virtual Currency Girls.’ Each of the eight members represents one cryptocurrency. The band’s members are as follows:

  • 18-year-old Rara Naruse, representing Bitcoin Cash 
  • 16-year old Hinano Shirahama, representing Bitcoin
  • Age-unreleased Ami Amo, representing Ethereum
  • 22-year old Suzuka Minami, representing Neo
  • Age-unreleased Momo Aisu, representing MonaCoin
  • 17-year old Kanako Matsuzawa, representing Cardano
  • 17-year old Koharu Kamikawa, representing NEM
  • 15-year old Hinata Kozuki, representing Ripple

Speaking to Japan today, the group divulged its aim as being to raise awareness on cryptocurrency and its potential for society. “This unit is not here to promote speculation of investment. Out of the numerous existing virtual currencies, we have carefully selected a handful of currencies that are sure to exist in the future in order to broaden the public’s understanding of them using entertainment as our medium.” 

Each of the members dons a mask representing their currency. Their first release was called “The Moon and Virtual Currencies and Me.” 

vi) Fine Art

Bitcoin is now inspiring artists so much as for them to create exhibitions with the currency as the central theme. In 2014, San Francisco living space startup 20Mission used art to express itself. In 2014, the startup held an art show dedicated to Bitcoin. 

vii) Grey’s Anatomy (Series)

Everyone’s favorite medical drama made sure to mention the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. The winter finale of 2017 delved into ransomware and Bitcoin. 

In the episode, Grey Sloan Medical Hospital is dealing with a cyber-attack. Screens are popping with the words, “We own your servers. We own your systems. We own your patients’ medical records.” The hackers then request 4,932 Bitcoin as ransom. (The value was about $20 million) at the time of airing)

viii) Family Guy (Movie)

The animated sitcom which has been running since 1999 has made sure to catch up with the modern currency. In season 14, the show’s protagonist Peter Griffin suggests Bitcoin might be the family’s solution to their financial woes. This is after the family huddles around and prays for a financial miracle, only to find their pockets empty. 

ix) Silicon Valley (TV Series)

In season 5  Silicon Valley, the TV show focuses on cryptocurrency. As it stands now, the depiction by the show might be one of the most accurate and realistic ones yet. From crypto to ICOs to Bitcoin, it covers it all. And rather than creating an unrealistic view, it serves audiences with what’s more likely to happen in the real world. For instance, Gilfoyle’s PowerPoint presentation explaining cryptocurrency is pretty accurate.

So is the depiction of the wild pitfalls that a startup is likely to encounter while launching an ICO. In one scene, Monica (Amanda Crew) warns Richard (Thomas Middleditch) about jumping on the Bitcoin ship, saying, “Before you walk away from stability and gamble your entire company in crypto, there’s another friend of yours I think you should talk to.” 

x) Bitcoin Heist (Film)

In a 2016’s film Bitcoin Heist, an Interpol agent brings together formidable elite hackers to create a team that will track down the world’s most wanted thief. Together, they set on a mission to carry out the ultimate cryptocurrency heist. 

Written and directed by Vietnamese director Ham Tran, the film puts Bitcoin at the center of the action. The movie is now available on Netflix and has an impressive approval rating of 79% on IMDB.

xi) We Miss You: The Bitcoin Dip ( Song)

This is a play on Puff Daddy’s “I’ll be Missing You,” by Crypto Daily, with the catchy tune reminiscing the days when Bitcoin was $10,000 and above. It impresses the hope that although the currency is going through rough and volatile times, it will one day bounce and go past $10, 000 again. At the time of writing, the song’s video has 64, 000 views on YouTube. 

xii) 10, 000 Bitcoins: Laura Saggers

British-born singer Laura Saggers is just like us. In the song 10,000 bitcoins, Saggers imagines the things she would do if she had all that money. From getting her lover a rear-wheel-drive to paying for them to fly, to taking them on a tour of their favorite breweries. But while she doesn’t have the Bitcoins now, “a day doesn’t go by where” she “doesn’t work hard and try.”

Final Thoughts 

It’s impressive to see cryptocurrency has warmed its way into pop culture. While it’s fun for crypto enthusiasts to see their favorite type of currency in entertainment headlines, it’s great to know that for every pop culture mention, more people learn about it. This will slowly push the idea into the mainstream conscience and, hopefully, use it. It will also help to dispel the myths surrounding it, such as that crypto is just a currency for criminals. 

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Crypto Videos

The Facts Of Trading Crypto To Make Solid Returns!

 

Cryptocurrency Trading Essentials – Know What to Look For


Some cryptocurrency enthusiasts are just not interested in buying and holding their cryptocurrencies. They would rather use some of that investment money a bit more active and start trading. However, the majority of the traders lose money as they get tangled in the complex indicators and strategies while forgetting the basics.
This guild will try to point out one of the most important things when it comes to maintaining profitability and being consistent – Recognising Market Trends.

Trading in different market conditions

While it is important to know how to utilize the intricate indicators, oscillators, and other tools in order to trade crypto well, something as basic and as simple as recognizing a major trend direction will certainly go a long way. It is a rule that traders should only trade WITH the trend, but traders rarely look at bigger time frames in order to recheck the trend direction. As an example, the same candlestick formation might be a good signal in a bull market, but wouldn’t count as a signal in a bear market.
All three market directions (bullish, bearish, and ranging) work differently, and different strategies work in different market conditions. It is advisable that traders create strategies for each market direction rather than to try to make a revolutionary strategy that always works. It is generally true that almost every strategy will work in a bull market to some extent, while only a few strategies will effectively work in a bear market. Ranging markets are easy to trade as they are bound by support and resistance levels, but are hard to recognize before it’s too late.

An important thing to note is also that each of the strategies created should be tested on the market as a whole as well as on separate time spans in which there was only one trend direction. That way, we can estimate how the strategy works both on the market as a whole and on each of the separate trends.

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Cryptocurrencies

Best Cryptocurrency Payment Gateways

Cryptocurrency payment gateways are networks that allow merchants to accept Bitcoin and altcoins as means of payment. Through these networks, users from anywhere can purchase products and services from a business that accepts crypto payments, no matter where it’s situated across the globe. 

As well, merchants that accept crypto can overcome barriers that are associated with traditional modes of payment, such as high fees, mandatory identification procedures, and delays. Also, these businesses convert your crypto instantly, so you avoid the risk of losing money in case of a fall in the prices of crypto. 

In this piece, we’ll look at some of the best crypto payment gateways and what they have to offer. But before that, let’s look at why businesses should accept crypto payments, after all. 

Why Should Businesses Accept Bitcoin?

  • Gain a new breed of customers who prefer paying with Bitcoin
  • Offer customers a way to pay discreetly. 
  • Payments are secure and indelibly recorded on the blockchain.
  • Avoid high costs associated with other payment methods.
  • Build a brand reputation as a forward-thinking company
  • Relieve the transaction cost burden of taking business global 
  • Avoid the chargebacks associated with other payment methods. 

With that, let’s looks at some of the companies that are making it possible for businesses to accept payments. 

i) CoinBase Commerce

This is a payment gateway by the company behind one of the biggest crypto exchanges – Coinbase. CoinBase Commerce facilitates the instant conversion from Bitcoin to Fiat without the business having to request for a withdrawal. The company does not charge any fees for merchants, but you will need to pay a network fee to miners.

Payments will clear in the merchant’s bank account from 1 or 2 to 3 business days, depending on the country. Launched in 2018,  the platform currently supports Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, DAI, and USDC coin. The support of USDC coin is particularly important since it can protect customers from countries with unstable currencies such as Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Yugoslavia, and so on.   

ii) Coingate

CoinGate is another Bitcoin payment gateway with great options for merchants. It has a user-friendly app through which merchants can sign up and start accepting crypto payments right away. It currently accepts 50+ coins, including the big hitters like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. 

On top of that, the platform supports payments from more than 100 countries. The platform levies a fee of 1% per transaction, which is processed within an hour. Another major selling point is Bitcoin, and Litecoin users can send payments over the Lightning Network, which greatly enhances the speed of transactions and with an added layer of privacy. 

iii) CoinsBank

CoinsBank is another trusted crypto gateway that currently supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, and Ripple. It features a one-click deposit and withdrawal function that is especially useful to large-volume traders. 

Crypto payments are instantly converted to Fiat currency, so the business will not suffer from any impending price falls of the crypto in question. CoinsBank currently supports the latest security features, such as a two-factor authentication system that helps deter hackers and other types of fraud. 

iv) BitPay

This is one of the most trusted cryptocurrency payment gateways, boasting of clients such as Microsoft, Neteller, airBALTIC, and so on. The platform employs a two-factor authentication to ensure your funds are protected, with a straightforward process that’s easy to use for the less tech-savvy clients. 

Small businesses and startups are at an advantage with BitPay, as they get to accept payments without a fee for the first $1,000 of transactions before incurring a levy of 1% thereafter. BitPay currently supports all countries in the world except the following: Algeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, and Vietnam. 

v) CoinPayments

Launched in 2013, BitcoinPayments is one of the surest crypto payment gateways out there. This platform excels with the sheer number of cryptocurrencies that it supports – over 1890 at the time of writing. CoinPayments has plugins for big-name stores, such as WooCommerce, Shopify, OpenCart, Magento, OsCommerce, WP eCommerce, and so on. The platform is available in more than 182 countries at the time of writing.

CoinPayments also supports instant confirmation transactions and provides a vault that you can use to better manage your spending by choosing when to access it. The platform is available on both iOS and Android so that you don’t miss out on the crypto revolution. You also have access to a multi-coin wallet equipped with top-notch security. However, you should not store funds for too long in the wallet, as online crypto wallets are vulnerable to hacking. 

vi) Spectrocoin

This is a crypto payment gateway based in Europe. Spectrocoin currently supports Bitcoin, NEM, and DASH cryptocurrencies. It has plugins for several merchants, including ZenCart, Drupal, VirtueMart, Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and so on. 

With support for over 150 countries, Spectrocoin instantly processes your payments and converts them to your preferred Fiat denomination, so you avoid the risk of volatility. 

vii) GoURL 

GoURL is a crypto payment gateway that works with almost all Bitcoin wallets and is compatible with Bitcoin debit cards, including BitPay card. The platform confirms transactions in 30 seconds, and users who don’t have a website can set up a one-click payment solution through GoURL’s Monetiser Online function.

There are no KYC procedures, no ID needed, no background verifications, etc. GoURL has plugins for customers such as Bitmain, BTC.com, Bueno Wines, View2be, Rodeo Gold, and so on. 

viii) Ikajo

Ikajo is a mainstay in the payments industry, with over 15 years of experience. The company now processes cryptocurrency payments for merchants, who can access customers from 100+ countries from around the globe. 

Merchants signing on the platform get access to instant service at a fee of 1.2%. Ikajo is currently running an affiliate program where merchants can get extra revenue of 50% upon getting other qualified businesses to sign up on the platform. 

ix) AlfaCoins

AlfaCoins supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, DASH, and XRP cryptocurrencies. The platform features CoinSplit, a function that allows users to split payments between crypto and fiat. Through this feature, AlfaCoins users can take a portion of their earnings as Fiat and hold the rest in a cryptocurrency wallet for HODLing. 

The company accepts payments from all countries, with the only exceptions being Iran and North Korea. Merchants are charged a flat fee of 0.99%, one of the lowest in the crypto payments industry.

So there you have it. With these crypto payment gateway options, you can get started on accepting cryptocurrency payment for your business. This option grants you the ability to secure your funds in a cryptographically-secured environment, free of chargebacks and border restrictions. 

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Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, May 11 – Bitcoin Hours from its Halving Event; Traders Entering the “Greed” Stage

The cryptocurrency market has spent the weekend closely watching the timer to Bitcoin’s halving. Most cryptos had an over 10% price decrease on Sunday. Bitcoin is currently trading for $8,698, which represents an increase of 0.85% on the day. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 0.25% on the day, while XRP went up by 0.13%.

Crypterium took the position of today’s most prominent daily gainer, with gains of 31.95%. Hyperion lost 22.39% of its daily value, making it the most prominent daily loser.

Bitcoin’s dominance decreased over the weekend, with its value currently at 67.25%. This value represents a 0.68% difference to the downside.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization decreased when compared to Friday’s value, with its current value being $239.74 billion. This value represents a decrease of $25.81 billion when compared to the value it had on Friday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

With Bitcoin halving being just hours away, everyone is looking at the biggest and most well-known cryptocurrency. However, just like before the previous halving in 2016, Bitcoin’s price dropped right before the event.

People are not scared though, as the fear and greed index shows that Bitcoin investors are in the greed phase, which shows us that people are quite interested in grabbing their Bitcoin before it becomes too late.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap has, after failing to break the $10,000 resistance, started testing support levels in order to find one it can consolidate at. However, one support level by another fell and Bitcoin quickly reached double-digit losses, standing at under $9,000. It is currently bound by its immediate resistance at $8,880 and support at $8,650. It is important to note that Bitcoin fell back into a long-term upwards facing trend, which its price reacted to.


Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $8,820                                           1: $8,650

2: $8,980                                           2: $8,000

3: $9,120                                            3: $7,750

Ethereum

Ethereum also lost quite a bit of its value over the weekend. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap failed to break $217.6 which triggered a downturn that brought its price to $178.65 levels. However, the price quickly recovered and Ethereum is back above $185. Ethereum is, unlike  Bitcoin, in a descending trend which its price completely respected and acknowledged.


Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $193.6                                            1: $185

2: $198                                              2: $178.65

3: $217.6                                            3: $167.8

Ripple

XRP pretty much followed the market when it comes to price movement over the weekend. The third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap also had an over 10% loss, which resulted in XRP falling below the $0.214 support (now turned resistance).


XRP managed to stabilize above $0.19, where it is trading at the moment.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.2                                               1: $0.19

2: $0.205                                           2: $0.178

3: $0.214                                            3: $0.147

 

Categories
Crypto Guides

How Different Is Permissioned Blockchain From Permissionless Blockchain?

Introduction

Blockchain has created ripples throughout many industries. Its security futures are ever essential now with increasing data due to IoT. Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning are used to analyze the data generated to find different patterns as per the requirement. Blockchain is essential to secure the data or transfer the data securely.

Different industries are trying to implement the blockchain technology to improve their business. Hence, it is essential to design the platform in terms of their requirement. To facilitate the same, we have different types of blockchain platforms available. They are as follows:

  1. Permissioned blockchain or Private blockchain
  2. Permissionless blockchain or Public blockchain.
  3. Hybrid blockchain.

Permissionless Blockchain

Cryptocurrency platforms are classic examples of permissionless blockchain platforms. As the name suggests, it is a public blockchain. Anyone can join the network to perform different activities in the network, like users, miners, developers, or community members. Since the network is transparent, anyone can have a look at the transactions getting confirmed in the network.

🔓 Permissionless blockchain networks follow all the underlying principles of a real blockchain network. These networks are genuinely decentralized.

🔓 Authorities cannot shut down the network as no single entity controls the network. People, regardless of nation, location can join the network from anywhere.

🔓 Mostly all public blockchains are linked to a token with some intrinsic value. Based on the network-specific number of coins are mined at the beginning itself, or new coins are mined after every block is confirmed.

🔓 Miners are rewarded with these tokens to keep running the network smoothly.

🔓 Bitcoin is an example of a permissionless blockchain network.

Permissioned Blockchain

Enterprise blockchains are an excellent example of permissioned or private blockchains. Permissions should be given for different entities to join the network.

🔐 Everyone should have valid credentials to join the network.

🔐 These networks are not genuinely decentralized as these networks are created for the purposes of enterprises.

🔐 Not all the members of the network can see the transactions unless they have appropriate permissions.

🔐 Different Hyperledger platforms developed for different enterprise use cases are good examples of permissioned blockchain networks.

🔐 These blockchains are often not associated with tokens as enterprises run these.

Consortium Blockchains

Consortium blockchains are nothing but private blockchains but run by different entities together. Blockchain, being niche technology, different companies, even rivals, are coming together as a consortium to develop the technology.

R3 Corda is one such example in the financial place formed to create the technology for Fintech purposes.

Hybrid Blockchain

Hybrid blockchains offer the functionalities of private and public blockchains together at the same time. The entities involved can choose which data should be open or closed, depending on their functionality. The users need not forgo one feature completely to utilize the other functionality.

🔐🔓 Interoperability is very much possible, enabling to form multichain because of the hybrid nature of the platform.

🔐🔓 Dragonchain is an excellent example of Hybrid blockchains.

These are different types of blockchains available as of now, enabling the adoption of various industries as per their requirement.

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Crypto Daily Topic

How Decentralised Finance is Redefining the Banking Industry

In the last few years, the concept of decentralization has gained a lot of attention across all industries. This has been fuelled by the entry of blockchain technology, which has supported the growth of numerous cryptocurrencies. 

Decentralized finance, in particular, has become a widespread concept driven by the public’s disillusionment with the centralized financial system. This is especially true given the alarming rate of cyber-attacks, which often leave individuals at risk of financial loss and personal data exploitation. 

Besides privacy concerns, decentralized finance has the potential to extend access to financial services to the 1.7 unbanked population. It faces fewer barriers than traditional banking services, prompting start-ups to take up open source finance to bridge the existing market gap. 

What makes Decentralised Finance a Better Choice

Decentralised Finance (DeFi), is an ecosystem of financial solutions built on top of a blockchain network. At their core, these solutions bring in the permissionless and transparent nature of blockchain into the financial industry. This means that users are given absolute control of their assets and can interact with other users through peer-to-peer transactions, thereby eliminating the need for a central authority. As a result, financial services become more affordable and frictionless compared to traditional banking services. 

Additionally, unlike centralized financial services, DeFi doesn’t require complex infrastructure to reach the general public. In fact, as the internet penetration rate increases, so does DeFi become accessible to everyone since it’s internet-based. 

Decentralized Finance Use Cases

There already exist several solutions that provide open-source financial services. These solutions fall in 4 major categories: 

i) Borrowing and Lending

Open source borrowing and lending services are the most popular application in the decentralized finance ecosystem. Thanks to the lack of a central authority, these solutions make borrowing and lending affordable, faster, and more accessible. In some cases, your credit score may be overlooked, especially when you agree to collateralize your digital holdings. 

ii) Monetary Banking Services

Decentralized finance is fintech applications offering monetary banking services. This means that the applications can serve as issuance platforms. Currently, most DeFi applications focus on the issuance of stablecoins, insurance mortgages, and securities. 

By offering stablecoins, DeFi applications contribute to the maturation of the blockchain industry since the stablecoins are less volatile. This makes it possible for the coins to be used by merchants and investors as a store of value. 

DeFi’s entry into the mortgage and insurance market has helped eliminate the role of intermediaries. This has reduced the underwriting and legal fees in the case of mortgages. At the same time, it has helped lower the cost of premiums in the insurance market by spreading risk among the parties involved. Also, DeFi applications make it easy for companies and businesses to launch and issue tokenized securities to investors. Other platforms allow the creation of blockchain-based derivatives and synthetic assets, contributing to the growth of the financial industry as a whole.

iii) Decentralized Marketplaces

Decentralized marketplaces are relatively new in the industry, as evident from their limited share of the market. However, as more people come to appreciate anonymity and privacy, decentralized marketplaces will rise in popularity. 

These marketplaces are peer-to-peer platforms that allow users to trade assets without the need for a trusted intermediary to hold their funds. All trading transactions are automatically executed by smart contracts. As such, they have lower trading fees and require less maintenance compared to their counterparts. 

iv) Payment Processing

Sending payments, especially across borders, has long been a major pain point for business and those working overseas. The biggest problem facing these transactions is the expensive amount of fees charged by banks and traditional payment processors for sending remittances. 

With the likes of the Stellar blockchain leading the way, DeFi is committed to making cross-border payments more affordable. In turn, businesses will extend their market outreach now that they can accept payment from customers across the world. 

Why Hasn’t Decentralised Finance Skyrocketed?

Given the numerous advantages of DeFis, one would expect it to have gained massive usage. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case – based on the 25 million cryptos users against the 1.7 billion unbanked population. This is due to the following challenges:  

  • Scalability 

Scalability has been the biggest problem facing the entire blockchain industry, and decentralized finance applications are no exception. Currently, DeFi applications can’t process as many transactions as traditional financial services can. For instance, Visa can process about 24,000 transactions per second, which is way more than 15 transactions processed by Ethereum DeFis in one second. If decentralized finance applications and the blockchain industry, in general, is to appeal to the world, then developers must work on improving the bandwidth to handle more transactions. 

  • Technical Risks

In their simplest form, DeFi applications and the blockchain network are pieces of software. As such, they are prone to bugs and hacks undermining their growth. A good example is the Ethereum blockchain, whose ERC-20 standard is plagued by constant bugs that render applications built on it inefficient. Also, there have been several DeFi applications that have been hacked, creating uncertainty among crypto enthusiasts. 

  • Manipulation

Since DeFi applications are currently unregulated, the market remains vulnerable to manipulation. In the traditional banking industry, manipulation is almost impossible thanks to the strict monitoring and regulations put in place by authorities. 

The most common practice is the manipulation of price feeds, also known as oracle manipulation. Oracles, in this case, refers to third-parties that supply blockchain with a particular type of data. For example, the Ethereum blockchain doesn’t determine the price of ETH. The price is determined by oracles, such as exchanges. 

Oracle manipulation occurs when a DeFi app uses only one or a limited number of exchanges as the only source of data. This means that traders can trade large amounts of cryptos to sway the price movements, thereby manipulating the information provided by the oracle ( exchange).

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that decentralized finance is set to become the future of the financial industry. But for it to mature and appeal to all stakeholders, decentralized finance needs to mitigate the hurdles hindering its growth. Moreover, DeFi applications are working independently of each other, which fragments the market. Perhaps if they were to work harmoniously, some of the problems facing the industry would be solved. 

Categories
Crypto Videos

Fractals In Crypto Trading – Add This Tool To Make Solid Gains!

Cryptocurrency Fractal Trading Guide

Bullish and Bearish Fractals

A fractal is a recurring pattern that occurs in larger price moves in technical analysis. In this case, it is a five candle trend reversal pattern, and there are bullish and bearish fractal versions. A bullish fractal reversal pattern has:

The third candle in a five-candle series has the lowest low
The first two candles have higher lows than the middle candle
The last two candles have higher lows than the middle candle

A bullish fractal reversal pattern signifies the end of a downtrend and the beginning of a new uptrend. Traders can use this pattern in two ways:
as a long entry signal or
as a signal to exit an existing short position

Many traders will use fractal signals alongside oscillators such as the stochastic or RSI for a confirmation of a bullish signal.
On the other hand, a bearish fractal reversal pattern has:

The third candle in a five-candle series has the highest high
The first two candles have lower highs than the middle candle
The last two candles have lower highs than the middle candle

A bearish fractal reversal pattern signifies the end of an uptrend and the beginning of a new downtrend. Traders use this pattern in two ways:
as a short entry signal or
as a signal to exit any existing long position
Fractals – multiple time frame analysis
Fractals are also very useful when it comes to multiple time frame analysis. Traders may use fractionalized times frames to create trading ideas.
As an example, a trader may use a daily or weekly time frame to get a better view of the overall market stance. However, they should decide their entry and exit points by looking at smaller time frames such as 1-hour or 15-minute charts.
A simple fractal trading strategy may look like this:
A trader identifies a major trend direction on a daily chart
They then use a 1-hour chart to identify their entry and exit points
Entry signals on the smaller time frame are considered only if they align with, the larger time frame trend
Signals against the larger trend are not considered trading signals but rather a suggestion to exit current positions
Conclusion
Using fractals as a trading tool can be beneficial in terms of analyzing daily randomness. Fractals can be used in many ways, so each trader needs to find the variation that suits them. While some traders may like using fractals, others may not. That being said, fractals are certainly a useful addition to any traders’ toolkit.

Categories
Crypto Videos

Crypto Pivot Points! Master The Market!

Cryptocurrency trading – Pivot Point guide


What are pivot points?
Pivot points are a pattern repetition indicator that is used to predict support and resistance levels. They can also help determine the overall market trends.
The most common way to use and calculate a pivot point is the so-called “five-point system.” This system comprises of an average of the numerical high, low as well as close of the previous trading period. These numbers are used to plot a course for five levels: two sets of resistance levels, two sets of supports, and a “pivot point.”

Calculating pivot points
The five-point system is one of the ways of calculating and identifying support and resistance levels. It is also one of the simplest, and is calculated like this:
Pivot Point (P) = (Previous Low + Previous High + Previous Close)/3
Resistance level 1 (R1) = (Pivot Point x 2) – Previous Low
Resistance level 2 (R2) = Pivot Point + (Previous High – Previous Low)
Support level 1 (S1) = (Pivot Point x 2) – Previous High
Support level 2 (S2) = Pivot Point – (Previous High – Previous Low)
The pivot point from our example is derived from the previous high, low, and close divided by 3. This allows traders to define an area where the price action seems most sensitive and likely to shift in sentiment.

Pivot point strategy – time frames

While it is possible to utilize pivot points on longer time frames, common practice looks at the smaller time frames such as 4-hour, 1-hour, 30, and 15-minute charts.
When used alongside other indicators such as the MACD and the RSI, traders can ensure the legitimacy and significance of their predictions.

Pivot point – example

An example shows the Bitcoin chart above with resistance levels marked as “R1” and “R2,” and support levels marked as “S1” and “S2.” The pivot point is marked as “P.”
Some traders end up using up to four resistance and support levels.
The first example shows that the pivot point acted as a threshold for prices to go bullish for continuation, therefore confirming the legitimacy of the move $6,285.
The RSI showed oversold conditions just before the breakout, and the MACD printed a bull cross, which added an additional layer of confirmation to this bullish move.
After a few unsuccessful attempts to surpass the R1 resistance level, Bitcoin plummeted on Sept. 14.
Finally, Bitcoin’s price went under the pivot, as well as both supports on Sept. 17.
Each of these moves had multiple indicators that confirmed the market sentiment moves as either a support and resistance test or a legit rally or breakdown.

Conclusion

Pivot points are certainly a useful addition to a trader’s technical toolbox that allows them to confirm the support and resistance levels, as well as to judge the strength of big price moves.

Categories
Crypto Guides

Understanding Social Scalability & the Tradeoffs in Cryptocurrency

Introduction

Taking time back to over 70,000 years ago, there were about 6-10 species of the genus Homo. In them, Homo sapiens prevailed over all other species. In fact, they overcame Homo neanderthalensis, who were supposedly physically stronger than humans. The vital difference was the ability of Homo sapiens to form groups and coordinate together in activities. Hence, a coordinated group of Homo sapiens could beat away a stronger individual either through directly fighting or by taking control of scarce resources indirectly.

This prevailing nature of Homo sapiens was explained by a researcher Nick Szabo who is called the ability to coordinate as social scalability. Increased size in the group leads to better coordination between increasingly large groups. The brain of Homo sapiens has been able to invert other external structures that increase social scalability.

 (Picture Credits)

Social Scalability & Its Impact

The evolution and advancements in technology have decreased the vulnerability to other participants and intermediaries. However, Language is that traditional technology which has increased the social scalability between people as it has allowed humans to communicate with each other.

The essential component of social scalability is trust minimization. The modern legal system has drastically increased the social scalability because it meant a scenario where any person could enter into contact with anyone else, and not having to develop any personal relationship with it.

One ideal example of the same would be matchmaking through online rating systems. Below are some instances which you could relate to:

Amazon: Matches manufacturers and consumers

Uber: Matches best drivers and riders

Airbnb: Match tourists and homeowners with spare rooms

The rating system significantly reduces trust in each transaction. After booking a Uber, I don’t need to do a background check of the driver because I trust them from the several reviews of the riders saying that the driver is safe and reliable.

Blockchain, too, has the potential to minimize trust and increase social scalability. This could be possible from the widespread application of capital and markets. As per history, the amalgam of money and markets have helped reduce transaction costs through the following ways:

Matchmaking – Bring buyers and sellers together

Trust minimization – trusting in self-interest instead of the unselfishness in strangers

Scalability via money – A wide acceptance and reusability medium for counter-performance.

Bitcoin and the Tradeoffs

In 2009, “Satoshi Nakamoto” created something which can be described as the most socially scalable money that had ever been created. It was called Bitcoin, powered by blockchain. Instead of having a so-called trusted intermediary, they created a currency that relies on a decentralized group of middlemen. Cryptocurrencies have the ability to substitute a mass number of computers for an army of financial intermediaries. As their features, they have a high level of security and reliability without the help of human intervention.

To scale up the social scalability via globalization, scaling human institutions was necessary. An increased number of accountants, lawyers, regulators are required. More human cognitive capacity is required to monitor the transactions. But, scaling up cognitive capacity is not possible by humans. Computers were the ones that could do this.

However, in computer science, there are tradeoffs between security and performance. For instance, the security needed to make cryptocurrency socially scalable requires a very high price as electricity is used for mining. Cryptocurrency sacrifices computational scalability to increase social scalability. The inefficiency in computations (electricity and high power usage) enable its social scalability (the ability of parties to make transaction across national borders).

As the cost of computational power is dropping, and the human capacity has remained static, the tradeoff is getting more beneficial.

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Cryptocurrencies

What is Grin?

One of cryptocurrency’s biggest selling points is their privacy – the ability to engage in transactions without them being linked to your real-life identity. While this would appear to be the picture on the surface, the reality is that it’s still possible for your transacting history to be traced to your real-life identity and open you up to fraud, interference by the state, and other consequences.

This state is known as ‘pseudonymity,’ and it refers to your ability to transact without the need to use your real-life credentials, but with your transaction trail having the ability to be used to link back to you. 

A bunch of coins called ‘privacy’ coins has been launched in response to this problem. Some of these, like Monero, use features such as ring confidential transactions (RingCTs), which result in high transaction fees and lower transaction throughput. Other features like ZCash’s zk-SNARKs and crypto mixers like CoinJoin involve trusting a third-party, which in itself is against all cryptocurrency stands for. 

Grin is a cryptocurrency that promises to solve all these problems: no half-half anonymity, third-parties, and high transaction fees. 

What is Grin? 

Grin is an implementation of the MimbleWimble blockchain protocol. Launched in January 2019, it is written in the Rust programming language. Grin deviates from the standard cryptocurrency model by having no public ledger. The cryptocurrency utilizes Coinjoin’s anonymization strategy to achieve scalability and privacy.

Grin was born out of the MimbleWimble project, which, in turn, was meant to be a sidechain for Bitcoin. However, it couldn’t mesh well with Bitcoin’s scripting system. This prompted the developers to create an independent cryptocurrency: Grin. 

Grin’s developers believe in staying true to cypherpunk principles – the idea that privacy should be a right and cryptography should be liberally used to achieve it; without governments’ and states’ regulation.

Grin also took an entirely different approach to funding. The project was funded by the community: without an ICO, airdrop, or any of the other traditional approaches. There was “No funny business,” as said by Igno Peverell, a pseudonymous developer of the project.  

What is MimbleWimble? 

MimbleWimble traces its origin to August 2016 when a user with the name ‘majorplayer’ posted a file on the IRC channel #bitcoin-wizards. The file described MimbleWimble as a private and scalable alternative for Bitcoin’s blockchain. This piqued the interest of some blockchain veterans, including Blockstream’s Andrew Poelstra, who then got to working on a more developed concept of the idea and a more organized whitepaper. 

The MimbleWimble protocol seeks to solve two problem areas for blockchain: privacy and scalability. 

Privacy 

MimbleWimble achieves the complete privacy of transactions with the use of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). ECC is a public key encryption method that will facilitate faster and stronger performance for cryptographic keys. Based on the elliptic curve theory, ECC-enabled public keys are also remarkably shorter. 

Scalability

MimbleWimble achieves scalability by removing old and unnecessary transactions from the blockchain so as to improve efficiency. Spent inputs are aggregated together over time and removed through a protocol known as ‘cut-through.’ As Grin explains on GitHub

“similarly to a transaction, all that needs to be checked in a block that ownership has been proven (which comes from transaction kernels) and that the whole block did not add any money supply (other than what’s allowed by Coinbase). There are four matching inputs and outputs can be eliminated, as the contribution to the overall sum cancels out… Note that all transaction structure has been eliminated and the order of inputs and outputs does not matter anymore. However, the sum of all outputs in this block, minus the inputs, it’s still guaranteed to be zero.” 

This ‘pruning’ of old transactions creates more space for newer transactions and prevents the network from clogging, allowing it to be more scalable. 

Grin’s Cuckoo Cycle

Grin employs a new type of proof-of-work algorithm which it calls “Cuckoo Cycle.” The protocol relies on memory, rather than on computing power to mine new coins. This means most types of computing machines can be used to mine Grin, as opposed to many other cryptocurrencies that rely on application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). 

The idea is to avoid ASICs centralizing the currency and to allow more users to participate in the mining process. Currently, Grin hard forks every six months to modify the mining algorithm so as to keep off ASICs. Grin’s algorithm is designed in such a fashion as to produce new blocks every 10 seconds. 

Grin’s Monetary Policy

Unlike the vast majority of cryptocurrencies, which are mostly used for speculative investment, Grin aims to be a currency that can be used daily as a medium for exchange. For this reason, its developers have designed it in such a way that its value is more stable. 

For one, it has an unlimited supply with a model that encourages users to spend, but not to HODL. It has a static emission of one coin each second; with an inflation that starts high and decreases over time to approach zero, without ever touching it (zero).

Current Status of Grin 

Despite Grin having some of the most forward-thinking approaches in the industry, it’s yet to achieve a solid footing in the industry.

However, as more crypto users gravitate towards more privacy, the coin is likely to see an uptick in usage. Moreover, its use of MimbleWimble, which is arguably popular in the blockchain space, grants it major credibility and, hopefully, potential. 

Grin’s protocol is also designed to support Schnorr signatures, which are shorter and help to create more space in the blockchain. In so doing, they help deal with both the issue of transaction backlog and high transactions’ fees. 

Tokenomics of Grin

As of April 29, 2020, Grin was trading at 0.551442 while ranking at #139. It has a market cap of $22, 302, 118, with a 24-hour volume of $49, 564, 7621. Grin has a circulating supply of 40, 443, 300, and a total supply of the same value. Grin’s all-time high was $10.00 (Jan 28, 2019), while its all-time low was 0. 305828 on (Mar 13, 2020).

Criticism of Grin 

Despite Grin implementing some of the most cutting-edge technology in crypto, it still has its own shortcomings. For instance, for transactions to take place, both parties must both be online. This is not always possible or convenient for participating parties.

There’s also the issue of usability. Although the options have recently expanded somewhat, previously, there was only a command-line wallet for Linux, Windows, and OSX, locking out non-tech-savvy users. 

Finally, MimbleWimble doesn’t have a scripting language. Some people consider this constraining since it means the blockchain is not programmable. But programmability is not a priority for Grin, as Poelstra would explain: “the design philosophy of Grin is to be as simple as possible.” 

Where to Buy Grin

You can buy Grin from any of several platforms, including Coinbase, Kucoin, Hotbit, Bittrex, Poloniex, HitBTC, and several others.

Before you purchase/exchange crypto for Grin, you need to first have a wallet. Some of the available options include Grin Purse, Grin Vault, Ironbelly, Supergrin, Diagon Alley, and Smirk.

Competition

Grin is a privacy coin, but so are other cryptocurrencies (more established ones, to boot) like Zcash, Monero, Komodo, Dash, and so on. However, Grin is still relatively young, and with its unique technology and approach, it holds compelling potential. With the MimbleWimble protocol, it’s directly in competition with only one and lesser-known crypto called Beam. 

Final Thoughts

Grin provides anonymity to users without preconditions. Its cut-through feature to eliminate transactions’ backlog enhances the crypto’s scalability and its ability to be used as a transactional currency. It’s one inherently honest currency – from development to actual use. Grin’s current market rank may be disheartening for fans, but this is likely to change as the crypto community starts edging towards utter anonymity coins. The cryptocurrency is one to keep an eye on. 

 

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

How to Create an Effective ICO Marketing Campaign

ICOs have revolutionized the way startups raise funds for their projects. Generally, it involves the selling of a company’s token in exchange for fiat currency or even popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and ETH. 

While the funds raised through ICO campaigns have declined in the last few years, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for your project to achieve its financial goal. To a larger extent, the success of your ICO project depends on the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. 

Interestingly, the same marketing tools used in conventional advertising campaigns are also used in promoting an ICO project. The difference is in the way you use the tools. As such, an effective ICO campaign is one that seeks to inform investors of the benefits of the project and its contribution to the blockchain network. Here is how to do an effective ICO campaign.

1. Research on Your Market

It is anticipated that blockchain will find its way into all major industries improving their operations as a result. But, this blockchain takeover is still in its infancy, and as of now, not every company can embrace ICO. 

So, before planning for an ICO marketing campaign, you need to ascertain whether integrating digital tokens into your business model brings any value. You may consider trying the IPO route if digital tokens aren’t suited for your startup. 

If indeed ICO adds value to your product or service offering, you also have to do more market research to find out if what you intend to offer is on demand. Usually, demand arises from the scarcity of a product in the market. Ideally, your offering should be unique to bridge the market gap and eventually create demand. 

2. Define Your Audience

A streamlined marketing approach works better than a general approach. It may seem counter-intuitive since marketing is all about getting your product out there to as many people as possible. But a wide approach means that you may end up marketing to people who are not interested in your offering in the first place. 

On the other hand, narrowing down your marketing campaign to the right audience will certainly win you more investors. 

You could start by identifying the personas of your ideal investors. Gather relevant information about then including their pain points and how your offering stands as a solution. To achieve this, you need to leverage existing cryptocurrency communities spread across various social media platforms. Most importantly, try and connect to those who are in the same industry as your offering.  

3. Tailor your PR and Media Outreach

In the course of your interaction with the crypto-community, you’re likely to meet two distinctive audiences. The first are those with an extensive understanding of the digital currency while the second group are those who aren’t crypto savvy but understand the potential of blockchain technology. 

It is your responsibility to build a comprehensive media and public relations outreach that address both groups of potential investors. As such, the content you publish on your website and social media platforms should offer deeper analysis and insight to cater to the audience who are well versed in the digital token market. At the same time, make sure you include basic information and guides for those with a limited understanding of the market. 

4. Create a Winning Whitepaper

Your project’s whitepaper is one of the surest ways to connect to your audience. It’s a marketing tool by itself that attempts to convince investors why they should stake their funds in your company. The idea here is not to oversell your project idea but rather to win the investors’ trust. 

Essentially, a good whitepaper should consist of the project’s outline with emphasis on its place in the current market. This will help investors examine if your solution stands out from the rest of the competitors in the market. Serious investors will stake in unique projects that demonstrate the resilience to survive in the market. 

You should also state the exact amount of money you intend to raise and how the funds will help achieve certain milestones of the project. This can be captured perfectly by designing a roadmap detailing the timeline of the project development. 

A whitepaper wouldn’t be complete without the project’s team section. Despite the fact that the section appears at the tail-end of the whitepaper document, it adds credibility and legitimacy to your project. So, it’s a good idea to have reputable professionals in your team to back up your project. Ideally, the team members should have had some success in the blockchain domain to demonstrate their authority on the subject. 

5. Partnerships and Active Involvement in Blockchain Events

Forging partnerships with other startups is a marketing tool that is often overlooked by most ICO projects. This is mainly due to the fear that one party may overshadow the success of the other party. However, if done right, partnerships can actually win you more clients in addition to contributing to the growth of your project. As such, it’s recommended to partner with a company that complements what you offer. For instance, if you are a fintech crypto startup, you can partner with a blockchain payment processor company. 

Also, active involvement in blockchain forums is a good way to get your ICO project known to the rest of the community. In these forums, you’ll not only interact with other potential partners but also investors and other interested parties. 

6. Create a Bounty Program

A bounty program is a marketing strategy that uses incentive-based rewards to attract investors to your ICO. A good example of this program is airdropping. It entails rewarding some members of the crypto community with free tokens for helping spread the word about the ICO project. The free coins can be exchanged for other digital currencies or retained as an investment in the project. This is an affordable marketing strategy, especially if you can offer just the right amount of tokens to make the campaign effective. 

Conclusion

Promoting an ICO can be overwhelming, given the sheer amount of work that goes into creating an effective marketing campaign. But with the guidance of the simple tips above, it can be easier since you’ll have an idea of what to pay attention to when designing your campaign. 

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, May 8 – Bitcoin Contesting $10,000 as Halving Nears – What’s Next?

The cryptocurrency market has spent the day mainly watching Bitcoin’s price rise prior to the halving. With all eyes on Bitcoin as its halving event nears, other cryptos moved far less than the biggest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is currently trading for $9,796, which represents an increase of 5.64% on the day. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 1.85% on the day, while XRP went down by 0.13%.

Crypterium took the position of today’s most prominent daily gainer, with gains of 65.26%. Numeraire lost 8.48% of its daily value, making it the most prominent daily loser.

Bitcoin’s dominance increased even more in the past 24 hours as it was one of the few cryptos that managed to pass its resistance levels, with its value currently at 67.93%. This value represents a 0.74% difference to the upside.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization increased when compared to yesterday’s value, with its current value being $265.97 billion. This value represents an increase of $8.08 billion when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Although the worldwide coronavirus pandemic has created global economic difficulties, we see cryptocurrencies growing in price, volume as well as the number of transactions. According to Brad Robertson, the head of a blockchain incubator Polyent labs, digital currencies seem appealing in the short term due to the price increase they have undergone in the past few weeks.

With the increased interest in crypto, constant printing of fiat currencies (especially during the coronavirus outbreak), and Bitcoin halving, we may see a bull run sooner than we think.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap spent the day trying to reach above $10,000. After it spent some time consolidating at the $9,200 area, Bitcoin spiked and tried to tackle the $10,000 level. However, the price could not get past it even with an extreme increase in volume, so Bitcoin fell down to $9,800 levels. Even so, the daily gains are more than substantial.


Bitcoin’s volume almost tripled on the day, while its RSI level reached overbought territory during the spike, but left it soon after.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $9,880                                           1: $9,740

2: $10,015                                         2: $9,580

3: $10,350                                          3: $9,250

Ethereum

Ethereum spent the day after leaving the descending trend mostly in trying to find a place to consolidate at. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap rejected the $217.6 level and fell down. However, the downtrend was quickly stopped by the top descending trend line, therefore confirming that Ethereum no longer belongs to that trend.


Ethereum’s volume doubled during the move, which brought it out of the trend but normalized after. Its RSI level currently hovers just above the value of 51.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $217.6                                            1: $198

2: $225.5                                           2: $193.6

3: $240                                               3: $185

Ripple

XRP continued creating lower highs even today. It is the only cryptocurrency out of the top3 to not be in the green on the day. While its price is heavily guarded against falling down by the $0.214 support level, if the cycle of lower lows continues, XRP will have no other option but to give up on this level.


XRP’s volume increased slightly during one period of the day but quickly normalized. Its RSI level is currently just above the value of 47.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.227                                           1: $0.214

2: $0.235                                           2: $0.205

3: $0.285                                            3: $0.2

 

Categories
Crypto Videos

Crypto Scalping! Making Gains Under Pressure!

Scalping in Cryptocurrencies – Become a Trader

 

Scalping in Traditional Trading


Scalping is a way of trading most often used by Forex traders. It involves seemingly low-risk profiles but requires a lot of discipline as well as intensive and quick trade processing.
Scalping is trading without holding positions overnight, but rather trading on extremely short time frames to utilize short-term emotion-drive price movements.
Two common approaches to scalping are arbitrage and spread scalping. While arbitrage finds a discrepancy between the bid and ask prices between two brokers and buys from one to sell to the other, spread scalping involves the price differences with the same broker.

Scalping in Crypto Trading

A scalper in the crypto market has to take advantage of small price discrepancies between exchanges or small price fluctuations on a single exchange to lock in small gains multiple times.
Big bull run fills the crypto market with optimism, and investing often turns to altcoins, which lead to choppy markets that can be utilized. While an investor might spot the upward trend in a given alt to make a profit, a scalper would have to spot the upward trend, long the Altcoin and short BTC to create a hedge, as well as to have an exit strategy of going back to Bitcoin as soon as the trade is made.
Scalp traders need to be quick on their feet and enter as well as close their positions in a timely manner. Discipline is key when performing these actions.

Is Scalping for You?

Even when run correctly, scalping is a strategy that is more time-consuming and much more intensive than other strategies. You will need to monitor the prices of many crypto assets if you want to use the strategy fully. On top of that, you need to execute trades quickly and to manage your bankroll well. As this requires much technical knowledge and a lot of multitasking, many scalp traders try to trade only one or a couple of pairs and look for their breakouts or retracements in order to make a profit.
While this strategy seems the most appealing, it is not for everyone. Only traders with high enough risk tolerance can utilize this strategy without it impacting them mentally.
If you, however, do decide to use this trading method, backtest your trading strategies, use keybinds to quickly enter and exit positions and calculate your trading fees beforehand to avoid any unnecessary losses.

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency and Taxes

Days are gone when cryptocurrency was seen as a fringe currency only suitable for criminal activity. The asset class is now more legitimate in the eyes of the public (and some governments) more than ever. Some employers now pay employees with cryptocurrency, plenty of merchants now use cryptocurrency for transactions, and millions hold the e-currency as a digital store of value.

As the asset class has risen in popularity, the internal revenue service (IRS) has also started to pay closer attention and has recently taken to clarify how cryptocurrency should be taxed. This is so far as to send warning letters to thousands of crypto holders and investors who it deems to not have complied with crypto tax regulations.

Many crypto traders and investors are still in the woods when it comes to how to properly handle their crypto tax. This article clears some of the confusion surrounding the issue, as well as outlining instances in which you need to declare your crypto tax returns.

Cryptocurrency and Taxes: The Fundamentals

The IRS views and treats cryptocurrency as property – not as currency. The purpose of this is to make crypto taxable, just like other types of property, and it applies to all cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, XRP, and so on.

This means that cryptocurrency must be treated by its owners just as they would any other form of property such as stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate, etc. As such, just as you would report capital gains and losses from stock trading, so should you report crypto trades. Failure to file your crypto returns is considered fraud by the IRS.

Bitcoins Held As Capital Assets Are Taxed As Property 

The IRS treats cryptocurrency as property, which means tax principles for property apply. Thus, any profit gained or losses accrued should be taxed as either capital gains or losses. It’s’s just like selling your home or moving stocks. 

Calculating Your Capital Assets

You take your cost basis – the amount you paid for the currency – and calculate how much it’s’s gone down since that date. Capital gains rates for a tax year can be 0, 15, or 20%. 

However, if you’re selling property as part of a trade, it will not be considered as a capital asset and is taxed as ordinary income. This applies to cryptocurrency too. The IRS will look at the ‘character’ of the gain or loss, or, the intent behind your selling. 

Cryptocurrency and Employment

Cryptocurrency used to pay for goods and services is also taxable. Employers paying wages in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency should also declare those earnings on W-2 forms. The cryptocurrency value should be converted to the equivalent value in US dollars on the date the payments are made, and careful records made. Also, wages paid in crypto are subject to withholding tax, just like for dollar wages. 

For their part, employees must report their wages earned in crypto as dollars. Also, if you’re self-employed, you must declare any gains accrued from crypto sales transactions. You must convert the crypto to dollars on the day they’re received, and record the figures as tax returns. 

Cryptocurrency Mining and Taxes

Crypto miners, people who utilize computer resources to validate transactions and record them on the blockchain, must also report receipt of the currency as income.

The IRS says when a taxpayer successfully “mines” cryptocurrency and receives earnings from that activity, they must include it in their gross income after determining a fair market value of the cryptocurrency on the day they received it. If a Bitcoin miner is self-employed, his gross earnings minus allowable tax deductions are subject to self-employment tax.

Taxable Events for Crypto

A taxable event is an activity that triggers a tax reporting liability. Such an event triggers a capital gain or loss that must be reported. 

The IRS specifies the following crypto-related events as taxable events: 

  • Trading cryptocurrency to Fiat currency 
  • Trading cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency (you have to calculate the value of the trade at the time of the trade)
  • Paying for goods and services with cryptocurrency (calculate the fair market value for the trade at the time of the trade)
  • Earning wages/ income/ salary in cryptocurrency (including from mining) 

What is Not a Taxable Event?

Gifting someone with cryptocurrency

  • Transferring cryptocurrency
  • Buying cryptocurrency with USD (since you don’t realize gains from that)

What if You Lose Money Trading Cryptocurrency? 

If you lost money while trading crypto, you can actually save money by filing those losses and save money on taxes. You can even strategically save money by selling crypto assets in which you have incurred losses, in a strategy known as Tax Loss Harvesting. 

Short-Term and Long-Term Capital Gains

If you’ve held cryptocurrency for less than a year before selling or exchanging, you should pay short-term capital gains tax. This kind of tax is equal to the ordinary income tax rate. However, if you’ve held cryptocurrency for a period longer than a year without selling or exchanging, you’re liable to pay long-term capital gains tax. 

As such, individuals can pay taxes at a lower rate than the ordinary income tax rate if they have held the cryptocurrency for more than a year. But this will limit the tax deductions that they can claim on long-term capital losses. 

What Happens If You Don’t Pay Your Crypto Taxes?

It’s easy to think that given the anonymity or pseudonymity of cryptocurrencies and the decentralized and peer-to-peer nature of crypto transactions that the government has no way of knowing that you’re trading, selling or buying cryptocurrencies. That might have been true for a while, but the IRS already caught up.

Indeed, the IRS won a court battle against crypto exchange Coinbase, which required the exchange to turn over data (taxpayer ID, dates of birth, addresses, transaction records, and so on) of over 13000 customers.

There is also the fact that the blockchain is publicly available, meaning anyone can view transaction histories at any time. It only takes linking an address to a real identity and determining who the owner of a transaction is.

Choosing not to file your crypto transaction returns is a risky decision that can get you on the wrong side of the law and expose you to criminal prosecution. 

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

How Blockchain is Being Deployed to Support Anti-Coronavirus Efforts All over the World

Blockchain is being used in the fight against Covid-19, the novel disease that emanated from China’s Wuhan in December last year and has spread to almost every territory in the world. As at the time of writing, 98, 387 people have died from the disease, and a 1, 633, 083 others have been infected. 

Governments and other organizations are scrambling to fight off the disease, and blockchain is aiding these efforts. Universities, the medical, and the private sectors are harnessing the power of blockchain to fight the virus. 

Let’s take a look at some of the ways: 

Blockchain for Monitoring Coronavirus Data 

Hashlog is a blockchain-based data visualization tool by blockchain applications developer, Acoer. Via Hashlog, people can understand and follow the global spread and impact of the virus easily. It combines information and data from a large set of publicly available data, including the World Health Organization’s. 

Hashlog maintains an updated catalog of the total number of infections worldwide, deaths from the disease, cases per country, as well as trends on Google based on interest and region. Thanks to the immutable nature of blockchain, data shared cannot be manipulated or altered in any way. The tool is automated such that data is updated automatically, and researchers and scientists can have a dynamic dashboard to guide them in their work.

Blockchain for Contract Tracing 

Pennsylvania’s Villanova University Department of Electrical And Computer Engineering is developing a platform to fight against the Coronavirus by utilizing a trio of blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and internet of things (IoT) technologies to assist healthcare facilities track coronavirus cases globally. 

The system relies on a private blockchain accessible by healthcare facilities all over the world to publish Covid-19’s test results among doctors on a transparent, secure, and immutable ledger. IoT and AI are used to conduct surveillance on public spaces where people would originally gather, but which would be high-risk for now. Any such gathering triggers alerts over the blockchain. 

These alerts will assist health care providers in making more informed and strategic decisions on how to allocate medical resources that are already in short supply. 

Hasshi Sudler, an adjunct professor at the university’s department, told Coindesk: “Medical institutions, whether they know each other or not, whether they trust each other or not, can exchange information about who they know that is infected and to maintain contact with who is infected, over the blockchain.”

Blockchain for Social Distancing

Spherity is a Berlin-based startup that has developed a decentralized identity system that helps Covid-19 patients get medication while maintaining social distance. Through the Spherity prototype, patients can share their digital fingerprints and know-your-customer (KYC) credentials with doctors in a user-friendly cloud-based and blockchain ecosystem. 

Once their patient’s KYC’s credentials are matched with their health records, they can be issued with an electronic prescription with which they can access medication. 

In another case of blockchain assisting the enforcing of social distancing, the Honduran government has deployed a blockchain based app to track and manage social distancing and lockdown orders. The country’s emergency response unit, together with the Inter-American Development Bank, tech startup Emerge, tech company Penta Network have come together to launch a program called Civitas, which will help in managing telemedicine as well as the permission for people to leave their houses for specific errands. 

If someone feels sick, they will engage with healthcare professionals from the National University of Honduras to determine if the symptoms are for Covid-19. Then, people with symptoms suspected to be related to the virus are directed to healthcare facilities that exclusively deals with it, reducing exposure to vulnerable populations in the region’s other hospitals.

Blockchain for Covid-19 research

About 6000 Ethereum miners are contributing to Stanford University’s Folding@home distributed computing Project. This project pools together GPU power from across the world to search for a cure for Covid-19. 

These miners Belong to CoreWeave, the largest US Ethereum mining pool. And now, they are redirecting the processing power of more than 6000 specialized computers towards the project.

Folding@home is a long-standing Research project Dedicated to finding cures for diseases from Alzheimer’s to Ebola and recently, Coronavirus. It aims to do this by connecting thousands of computers from the globe to form one big distributed supercomputer for the research of a cure for the disease. CoreWeave’s GPU machines, which are designed to perform repetitive calculations, double the power of the distributed network. 

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

How to Prevent, Detect and Recover from Cryptojacking 

As cryptocurrencies grow in popularity and value, they continue to face cyber threats due to their internet-based nature. The most common threats are security breaches targeted at individuals and firms holding significant amounts of digital currencies. 

Over the years, as crypto mining has become expensive but still lucrative, cryptojacking has become the latest threat facing virtual currency users. 

What is Cryptojacking? 

Generally, cryptojacking is the unauthorized use of a computer, tablet, smartphone by a cybercriminal to mine cryptocurrencies. The process is pretty straightforward as all the hacker has to do is send you a malicious link or infect a website with malware. Once you open the link or the website, the malware auto-executes in your device and starts mining cryptos in the background.

The attack might also be targeted at a business’s cloud platform. By hacking into this platform, the cybercriminals tap into the computer resources resulting in increased cloud usage cost at the expense of the business or institution.  

You might think that cryptojacking was rampant only in 2017 when the market was booming. On the contrary, recent data suggests that the practice has been on an upward trend even in the bearish market. The reason for this is that as the crypto-market turns bearish, mining doesn’t generate enough profits to cover the resources used. This has led cybercriminals to resort to siphoning computational power from unsuspecting victims as a cheaper and less risky alternative to earning returns. 

Most of the cryptojacking is done using JavaScript miner, which is also used for legitimate mining. This means that a perpetrator doesn’t require high technical skills since the miner can easily be bought as a complete kit. What’s worse, it’s impossible to trace a miner to a particular hacker since the mining code doesn’t encrypt their data. This is especially true for anonymous cryptos such as Monero and Zcash, which makes it harder to trace cryptojacking activities. 

How to Detect and Recover Cryptojacking 

It may be hard to trace a cryptojacking hacker, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible to know if your device is compromised. All it takes is just paying attention to your device’s performance. So, here’s how to find out if your device has been infected with crypto mining scripts. 

i) Overheating 

Cryptojacking codes tend to use a lot of electric power, causing your device to overheat. If left unresolved, overheating can damage other hardware, such as the storage drive leading to expensive repairs. Keep in mind that overheating doesn’t necessarily mean your device has been compromised. It can also be caused by unrelated issues such as a damaged fan or dust clog-up. So, ensure your device is always in good condition to make it easy to detect overheating caused by cryptojacking. 

ii) Notice Lag in Performance

Cryptomining code slows down your device’s performance, as it overworks the Central Processing Unit (CPU). You’ll easily notice the lag when performing basic functions such as opening files or typing in details. 

Alternatively, you can look at your CPU’s level of usage from the Task Manager tab on your PC or Activity Monitor on a Mac computer. If the CPU usage is higher than usual, then there’s a good chance that the cryptomining script is running in the background. 

iii) Scan for Malware 

Making use of your device’s security software is one of the best ways of detecting cryptojacking scripts. Although not all scripts can be detected, scanning for these malicious scripts regularly can save you the damage. You should also ensure your security software is always up to date for effectiveness. 

Additionally, if you own a website, it is advised that you scan for any changes in your code. This is where cybercriminals embed cryptojacking codes, so monitoring your site can help you detect threats early enough.

iv) Keep Tabs on Cryptojacking Trends

Cybercriminals are always improving and devising new ways of siphoning your device’s computational power. Staying on top of the latest trends will help you keep with the script’s improvements as you also learn how to detect them. You can get the latest news on cryptojacking from reliable sources such as CoinDesk, CryptoSlate, and other top cryptocurrency blogs. 

Having known how to detect cryptojacking, it’s pretty easy to recover from it. If you are dealing with a JavaScript attack, your first response should be to kill all running tabs. In the same vein, you should uninstall any suspicious browser extensions. Also, blacklist the website from which the attack originated from. It’s also advised that you deploy anti-malware to avoid further attacks. 

With this in mind, let’s look into how you can prevent cryptojacking in the first place. 

Ways of Preventing Cryptojacking

Here are some preventative measures you should take to safeguard your device from cryptojacking:

  • Security Training 

Security training involves building awareness of what cryptojacking attacks look like. This method works perfectly in a business or institutional setting where there are many employees, some of whom aren’t aware of cryptojacking. 

Essentially, the training should be aimed at educating employees on cybersecurity tips such as not clicking on phishing emails or suspicious sites, and downloading files from trusted sources only. 

You may also consider training your IT team on how to identify various attack methods and necessary actions to take to mitigate the threats. 

  • Disable JavaScript

Disabling JavaScript when browsing online, can prevent cryptojacking scripts from running on your computing devices. You can disable it on a single page of a site or even within the entire website. Keeping in mind that JavaScript is widely used by most sites, you should expect some web features to fail to work. 

  • Use Anti-Cryptojacking Extensions

Most of the cryptojacking scripts are found in web browsers and online sites. As such, installing trusted anti-cryptojacking extensions such as minerBlock and No Coin is an effective way of preventing cryptojacking. Ad-blockers can also help detect and block malicious scripts. 

Conclusion

Cryptojacking is not only a threat to the digital currency community but also to everyone who has a computing device. Like any other cybersecurity threat, it is almost impossible to anticipate cryptojacking or even stop it from happening. The only sure way of dealing with these threats is through the early creation of awareness, detection, and prevention. 

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic Cryptocurrencies

Is Bitcoin Really Anonymous?

If you were to ask a few people what makes Bitcoin a special internet currency, you’d most certainly hear that “Bitcoin is anonymous.” That’s because that’s the song sung on social platforms and drummed in by the media constantly. 

What people forget is that Bitcoin is also completely transparent. Thus, it would be ironic for it to also be anonymous.

What Bitcoin is, rather, is pseudonymous. This means it’s anonymous, but only up to a degree. 

The Bitcoin website clarifies: “Bitcoin is designed to allow users to send and receive payments with an acceptable level of privacy as well as any other form of money. However, Bitcoin is not anonymous and cannot offer the same level of privacy as cash.”

So what exactly is this pseudonymity? What are the intricacies that make Bitcoin anonymous, yet not? And why should you care? 

Let’s answer each of those questions.

Why Stay Anonymous?

There is a lot of talk about Bitcoin’s anonymity or lack of. Why should it matter? 

First, you need to remember that Bitcoin’s reputation as “the internet’s gold” makes it an ultra-attractive target to fraudsters, hackers, and other such elements. Any weak link they can exploit to unscrupulously acquire Bitcoins, they will. Countless stories of such incidents abound.

There’s also the little matter of privacy. Some people may just want to conduct their transactions privately, for whatever reason. Remember, if your address is linked to your identity, it reveals the following information:

  • How many bitcoins you held/are holding in that address
  • When, and from whom you received them
  • The address to which you sent them

Obviously, this is sensitive information that you never want leaking. Staying anonymous can ensure you protect yourself and your finances.  

How Do Bitcoin Transactions Work?

To get a clearer grasp of Bitcoin’s anonymity, we need to first understand how Bitcoin transactions work. The Bitcoin protocol, at its very basic level, comprises a series of transactions in the form of blocks. The transactions are packages of data, which include transaction ‘inputs and outputs.’ 

Inputs are the Bitcoin addresses from where bitcoins are sent, while outputs are the addresses to which bitcoins are sent. Each Bitcoin transaction transfers coins from one or several inputs to one or several outputs. 

It’s also possible for a transaction to have one input and several outputs, but that rarely happens as it would mean the amount of funds to be sent (output) would be exactly the same as the amount received earlier (input). 

It’s more common to find transactions that consist of multiple smaller inputs that translate into one larger transaction. For instance, if an individual controls two different inputs of 3 bitcoins each, and needs to send 3.5 bitcoins to an online store, the Bitcoin protocol will merge the two inputs into one transaction.

Even then, a transaction with multiple inputs is more common, since Bitcoin uses ‘change’ addresses. Change addresses allow users to spend the extra Bitcoins in a transaction – from one or several inputs, back to them. Consider the example of taking a $10 bill out of your wallet to pay for a $5 ice cream. You would give $5 to the cashier, and they would give $5 back to you. The $5 belongs to you, but it’s not available to you between the time you hand the bill to the cashier and the time they give it back to you. 

What Makes Bitcoin “Anonymous”? 

Bitcoin is widely regarded anonymous due to these reasons: 

First, unlike traditional payment systems, a Bitcoin address is not tied to the transacting individual. A network user can create a new and random address anytime, as many times as they want, without submitting personally-identifying information to anyone. 

Second, even transactions are not tied to the participant(s) of those transactions. Due to this, anyone can transfer bitcoins from any address whose private keys they control to any other address without having to divulge any personal information. Not even the receiver will know the identity of the sender. 

Third, transaction data on the Bitcoin network is transmitted in a random fashion on the peer-to-peer network. While computers on the network connect to each other via identifiable IP addresses, it’s hard to trace exactly where data originated from, thanks to that randomness. No one can know if data originated from a particular node, or if that node merely forwarded it. 

How Are Bitcoin Transactions De-Anonymized? 

There are three ways through which Bitcoin’s anonymity can be undone. 

First, although Bitcoin transactions are transmitted randomly over the network, it’s not a completely foolproof system. If a person has enough time and the tools to connect multiple nodes, it’s possible to determine the origin of a particular transaction. 

Second, Bitcoin addresses can be linked to real identities if the addresses are used together with real identities in one way or another. Some of the ways this could happen are: 

  • Addresses depositing/withdrawing funds from a centralized wallet or crypto exchange
  • Donation addresses that can be found/seen in the public domain
  • Using an address to send bitcoins to someone using your real identity

Thirdly, and perhaps most obviously, all transactions on the Bitcoin network are completely transparent and open for anyone to see. This transparency is the one that enables a determined person to cluster multiple addresses together and trace them to a user. 

What is Clustering? 

When we speak of clustering, what do we mean? 

Clustering is an attempt at analyzing transactions on a network, say, Bitcoin’s. The simplest explanation is this: combining multiple inputs into a single transaction. The inputs in question may have originated from different addresses, but the fact that they could be combined into one transaction means they originated from the same user. 

Change addresses could also be identified and linked to the sender of a transaction. When receiving Bitcoin, the output may not be attributed to you, but it most likely will be attributed to the sender. There’s also a type of software that reveals the owner of a change address to anyone who cares to dig. Such software may be configured in such a manner that it reveals the change address as the last output of transactions. 

Taint analysis is another method used to cluster transactions. This involves calculating the percentage of bitcoins one address received from another address and whether different addresses are, in fact, controlled by one user. 

Another clustering method is amount analysis and timing analysis. Amount analysis tracks how many bitcoins were sent in a particular transaction. Timing analysis tracks when a Bitcoin transaction occurred. 

How to Achieve Privacy over Your Bitcoin Transactions

1. Run Your Own Full Node

Conducting a transaction on the Bitcoin network requires you to have a wallet that is connected to a Bitcoin node. Bitcoin nodes are multiple computers that validate transactions before they’re recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain. If you’re transacting on the Bitcoin transaction and not running a full node, you’re relying on someone else’s, and you don’t have full control over your transactions. 

Not running your full node also has other less obvious implications. For instance, let’s say you’re using a certain wallet. You’re relying on this wallet to transmit and receive funds. Of course, the wallet service will claim not to tie your identity to the serial number of the wallet, and that they don’t collect your information when you’re setting up the wallet. Still, your IP address will be tied to the device, and your privacy and anonymity are compromised. 

You can avoid all of these scenarios by running your own full node. Take control over your transactions by not letting anyone verify your transactions for you. 

2. Use a VPN

An effective VPN (virtual private network) hides your IP address and encrypts your traffic so no one can see where you’re logging in from or what websites you’re visiting. Also, the sites you’re visiting will not know your IP address and your location. 

Running a full node ensures you can hide your location and IP address via a VPN. This way, any interested party cannot tie you to the node. 

When you’re using VPNs, you need to know not all are reliable. For instance, free VPNs will not be of much use. Other VPNs cannot be trusted to protect your data. Before you use any VPN, always conduct your own research to establish its reliability and how it has handled customer data in the past.  

3. Use TOR

TOR is short for The Onion Router and is a powerful anonymity tool that can also hide your IP address. Once activated, TOR operates as a separate browser that disguises your IP address and identity by routing your connection through random nodes on the Tor network such that your traffic cannot be traced back to you. The result is that it will appear as though you were coming from an entirely different country or state. If Bitcoin transactions are routed through Tor, there’s no way for anyone to know where they’re originating from. 

4. Use the Amnesic Incognito Live System (TAILS) 

TAILS is a live system that enables user security and privacy. It features an interface that can mimic the appearance of Windows so that a casual observer will not notice anything unusual with what you’re doing. 

You can use the TAILS system to anonymously send or receive Bitcoin, including from a public computer, without leaving a trace of your activity or identity. 

5. Use the Lightning Network (LN)

As you already know, all transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain are public. If someone knows your address, they can trace transactions back to you. 

Enter the lightning network. The lightning network is an off-chain layer for Bitcoin. Instead of transactions taking place on the Bitcoin blockchain, they take place on the Lightning network, offloading traffic off the Bitcoin blockchain. Like the Bitcoin network, the Lightning network also has multiple nodes. But unlike Bitcoin’s, the Lightning network’s nodes do not keep track of every transaction. The only information stored by the Lightning network is the interaction with other nodes.

Transactions in LN occur via two-way payment channels that only add the final transaction to the blockchain. Since not all transactions are added on the blockchain, LN is a great way to increase the privacy of your transactions. 

Final word

Bitcoin is not anonymous. It provides a certain level of privacy, but it will not guarantee that your transactions will not be traced. With this knowledge, you can know how to stay safe while interacting with Bitcoin and how you can do so. 

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, May 7 – Libra Reinforcing its Team; Bitcoin at $9,200

The cryptocurrency market has spent the day trying to break the levels it was bound by. Bitcoin is currently trading for $9,201, which represents an increase of 2.52% on the day. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 1.15% on the day, while XRP went down by 1.33%.

ReddCoin took the position of today’s most prominent daily gainer, with gains of 48.23%. Zilliqa lost 9.94% of its daily value, making it the most prominent daily loser.

Bitcoin’s dominance increased in the past 24 hours as it was one of the few cryptos that managed to pass its resistance levels, with its value currently at 67.19%. This value represents a 0.65% difference to the upside.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization increased when compared to yesterday’s value, with its current value being $257.89 billion. This value represents an increase of $9 billion when compared to the value it had yesterday.

Honorable mention

Libra reinforcing its team

Facebook’s digital currency made an announcement that Stuart Levey would be joining the project “later this summer.” His job will be overseeing Libra’s “combining technology innovation with robust compliance as well as regulatory framework.”

Levey has previously served the US government as the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap spent the day trying to break out of the range it was bound by. Strong bullish presence managed to push Bitcoin’s price up and away from the triangle formation it was in. While it is good news that Bitcoin broke to the upside, the fact that its price did not reach past the previous high of $9,500 is not so encouraging.


With its RSI close to the overbought territory, we can expect Bitcoin to retrace or trade sideways for some time before making another move.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $9,120                                           1: $8,980

2: $9,250                                           2: $8,820

3: $9,580                                            3: $8,650

Ethereum

Ethereum tried to mirror Bitcoin’s movements and reach above its previous highs but failed to do so. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap bounced off of the descending trend it is currently in and started to drop in price. A major drop was, however, prevented by the $198 support level.


Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $217.6                                            1: $198

2: $225.5                                           2: $193.6

3: $240                                               3: $185

Ripple

XRP continued creating lower highs while maintaining lows at a similar price. Today’s move stopped at $0.222 and then reverted and started moving downwards. XRP’s price fell under the $0.214 support level, turning it into resistance. However, the fight for $0.214 is still not over, as XRP might recover.


The $0.214 level will be moved to the “upside” key levels if XRP confirms its price below it.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.227                                           1: $0.214

2: $0.235                                           2: $0.205

3: $0.285                                            3: $0.2

 

Categories
Crypto Videos

CRYPTO! How To Read An Order book!

How to read an Order Book – Cryptocurrency edition

An order book is a tool that visualizes the real-time list of orders for a particular asset, including buyers and sellers. By properly reading an order book, one has the option to assess the supply and demand.
While all order books have the same purpose, they can vary in appearance slightly from exchange to exchange. However, they all have the same features and functions.

Order Book – essentials

Every trader that strives to be profitable has to become comfortable with reading order books. In order to do that, they have to understand the concepts of bid, ask, price, and amount. This information is displayed for both the buy-side and the sell-side.

Price and Amount

Although the buy and sell sides display opposing information, the sheer concept of amount and price are relevant to both sides. The amount and price per order are displaying total units of a cryptocurrency at certain prices.
The example below shows an open buy order at the amount of 20.24 and a price of $8218.50.
Looking at the cumulative orders can improve trading, as you can see the total amount of cryptocurrency orders, as well as their prices.

The Buy-Side

The buy-side represents all open buy orders that are listed below the last traded price. The last traded price is also known as the “bid.” It shows the trader’s interest in a certain amount of cryptocurrency at a certain price.
Once the bid matches with an appropriate sell order, the trade happens.
When a high concentration of buy orders form at a specific price level, traders recognize it as the buy wall.

Buy walls affect the price of a cryptocurrency because the price cannot go lower due to the high demand at a higher price. Buy walls act as short-term support levels.

The Sell-Side
On the other side, we have the sell-side that contains all open sell orders that are above the last traded price. This price is also known as the “ask.” The sell wall is formed when there is a concentration of sell orders at a specific price level. The sell wall acts as a short-term resistance level.

Conclusion
The order book gives a trader a great opportunity of making more informed decisions that are based on the buy and sell interest for a particular cryptocurrency.
It provides a deep outlook into the live-action supply and demand, therefore revealing order imbalances, market manipulation as well as support/resistance zones.

Categories
Forex Signals Forex Videos

The Free Forex Academy Signal Service! Over £18,000 made already!

How You Can Make Money Using Forex.Academy’s Free Trading Signals Service – PART 1

The Forex.Academy’s Free Trading Signals Service. What is it and how can it help you?

Forex.Academy has recently launched its free trading signals service which can be found under
the Signals tab on the Forex.academy website.


The webpage lists many open and pending orders relating to trades in several assets, from currency pairs, gold, and bitcoin.


And the trades are managed by professional traders, some who have come from an institutional background, having trading with institutional size deal tickets running into $ billions. Biographies of each trader will be added to the technical analysis for every trade and you will be able to access this information to help you decide which trades to copy. You wont be disappointed. These guys really know their stuff.


Each individual trade is listed on the table, and comprises of several components parts, including: Insert 1: The date the trade was listed: Insert 2: The type of order, which could be an instant execution, or spot trade, or a limit order including a buy limit or stop buy order or a sell limit or stop sell order, Insert 3: the type of asset, which could be a number of major or cross FX pairs and gold and bitcoin. Insert 4: the method where the each trader gives a detailed analysis of the thinking behind each trade, which, incidentally, most other signal providers do not offer, and where we will come back later in this video to take a more detailed look, Insert 5: the entry price for the trade, Insert 6: the stop loss for the trade, Insert 7 : the take profit level, Insert 8, The risk to reward level, Insert 9: the price level at close; Insert 10:
The closing date and time, if applicable and insert 11: the amount of pips won or lost or in the event of an open trade the fluctuating level of pips in play.
Now lets drill down a little further into the trade methodology as promised earlier.


The platform has a cool feature called the method, it allows total scrutiny of all trades by third parties, such as yourself, who want to know about the thinking and methodology behind the set-up of each trade. This is not about tossing a coin and hoping for the best, it’s about incorporating all the methods and techniques which are employed and incorporated by professional traders and institutions which have a high for this type of technical and fundamental analysis, which tend to offer a high success rate.

And so in this spot EURUSD trade, the trader had based his assumption that the pair should move lower and entered a short position as an instant execution trade at the exchange rate of 1.0798 with a stop loss of 1.0838 and a take profit target level of 1.0758 with a risk to reward ratio of 1.00 and where the trade was manually closed out on the 23rd 04 2020 at 12:06 PM with a profit of 23.8 pips. This tells us that the price action was reversing and unlikely to achieve its target exchange rate at 1.0758 and therefore the trader decided to close out. Followers would have the same option, and remember, this is about making money, and that markets can change direction and things can therefore change.


So let’s now click on the Method tab, and drill down further into the trading methodology behind this trade. Now you will be presented with a detailed analysis of this train set up. In this instance, the trader is Ali.B, who has elected to use a technical and fundamental analysis approach, based on a symmetrical

triangle breakout and while preferring the 4-hour time frame. Ali has incorporated several support and resistance levels, and has keenly observed that price action was forming a squeeze, and that a symmetrical triangle breakout had occurred and this was the set-up that he had incorporated as the backbone of this trade.
Ali provides detailed clarification from a fundamental basis, which is backed up by cool headed technical analysis.


By scrolling down we can see that more detailed information has been provided and where copy traders can also calculate what their profit and loss would likely be in the trade was allowed to go all the way to the targets and stop levels, based on the incorporation of using a standard or micro lots for those who decide to copy the signals.

This is the trading signals service table in a nutshell, it’s completely transparent, fully detailed, easy to follow with trades that can be copied by others, including new traders, or even experienced ones with a limited amount of time to set up their own trades, or those who wish to supplement their trading portfolios.
So what is the catch I hear you say? Other signal providers want to charge me a monthly subscription fee, often quite expensive, so there must be a catch or there must be something wrong with this service. Well just because it’s free, it doesn’t devalue the product and Insert J
just look at the success story so far, in just a few weeks our team of professional traders, many who will be trading these setups themselves, with their own funds, has bagged a very impressive amount of pips won of 1841.41, and that equates to $18,410 less fees and spreads for traders who copied all these signals with risking one standard lot size, and even a still impressive $1,841 less fees and spreads while risking a mini lot. All with a win to lose ratio currently running at over 65%.
As for the trading signals service being free; well it is all a part of the commitment by the owners and team here at Forex.Academy to offer free professional, comprehensive educational and related services within the world of financial trading.

Join us for part 2 to find out how this brand new free service can help you.

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

Blockchain Crypto Wallet Review: How Safe Is Blockchin Wallet?

On the Blockchain.com website, this wallet is described as the “Safest and Most Popular for Investing and Storing Cryptocurrencies.” Launched in 2011, Blockchain wallet has stood the test of time and gained a solid reputation as one of the safest crypto wallets available today. According to their website, over $200 billion has been transacted through 48 million+ Blockchain wallets since its establishment. 

A closer look into the wallet app, and you can narrow down to the three biggest factors that continue to draw in Blockchain wallet users. These include its dedication to the security of the wallet, its resourcefulness about different coins and blockchains, and its ease of use.

In this Blockchain wallet review, we dig deeper into its key operational and security features, its pros and cons as well as ease of use.

Key Features:

Multi-platform: The blockchain wallet is available in both mobile and desktop versions. These include Android and iOS mobile app versions, and also supports all the popular desktop operating systems.

Inbuilt exchange: Blockchain wallet has also partnered with some of the most popular crypto exchanges like Shapeshift, to provide an in-exchange. Here, you can swap, buy, and sell cryptos without having to transfer currencies in and out of the wallet.

Real-time access to crypto markets: The crypto wallet app has also been hailed for its inventiveness, especially when it comes to providing the most attractive crypto market experience. In addition to the in-app crypto exchange provided here, Blockchain wallet will also provide you with real-time access to the global cryptocurrency market.

Resource-based: Blockchain app will also expose you to a wide range of market resources. These include the historical data and statistical information about a particular coin or the Blockchain that helps you make informed buy/sell decisions.

Security features:

Double password: When installing the blockchain wallet, and virtually any other crypto wallet, you will be required to set a four-digit security pin. In addition to the main passcode, the Blockchain wallet allows you to create yet another password required for authorizing crypto transactions.

Biometrics and 2FA: The blockchain crypto wallet app will also support the more innovative biometric security features for smartphone devices. You can, therefore, chose to reinforce the security passcode with a fingerprint or Face ID security feature. Alternatively, use your phone number to activate the two-factor authorization.

Non-custodial: Blockchain wallet is non-custodial and will not keep any of your private keys within its servers. These will be under your control as they are stored in your device.

Hierarchical deterministic: The Blockchain wallet is also hierarchically deterministic, making it possible for you to shake off trackers, and guarantee a level of privacy when crypto trading by creating new wallet addresses for each transaction.

Open-sourced code: The Blockchain wallet code is also open-sourced. It has, over the years, been vetted and audited by different professionals, who have helped identify and seal possible wallet loopholes.

Built-in security center: Blockchain Wallet employs a three-tier security feature that the user can activate at a time.

Level 1: This is specially designed to help you maintain control of your wallet and quickly recover it, if lost, by verifying your email address, coming up with a password hint, and generating the 12 words recovery seed.

Level 2: Designed to keep others from gaining access to your account and involves verifying your mobile number and activating the two-step authorization protocol.

Level 3: Designed to keep away preys by blocking Tor IP Addresses and preventing Tor Network users – that has, for the longest time, been a favorite for hackers – from contacting/accessing your account.

Ease of use:

Blockchain wallet, despite being a feature-rich platform and having some of the stringent security features, maintains a rather simplistic user interface. It is easy to interact with and use, for both beginners and crypto veterans.

Registering a crypto account on Blockchain is also easy, and sending or receiving cash to the crypto wallet app quite straightforward.

The app is also multilingual, supporting over 25 international languages. More

Currencies and countries supported

Blockchain wallet was initially designed to serve as a bitcoin-only wallet and only recently started supporting Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Stellar cryptocurrencies, and the US Digital stable coin.

Though created by a Luxembourg based Fintech Company, the Blockchain Wallet has torn international borders to establish a presence in over 150 countries across the world.

Blockchain crypto wallet cost and fees

Downloading and installing Blockchain crypto wallet apps is free. And so is storing your digital currencies here or interacting with some of its security and operational features.

Crypto transactions that involve transferring cryptocurrencies in and out of the wallet, as well as exchanging one digital coin for another within its in-app exchange, attract variable fees. These are hugely dependent on the transaction volume and the speed with which you would like the transaction confirmed. The faster the transaction confirmation speed, the higher the fees.

Customer support

Blockchain wallet maintains an elaborate FAQ section of its website, which addresses common queries about the app’s security and operational features, or the broad crypto markets.

The company also maintains a highly responsive and multilingual support team that you can access via email or on their different social media platforms.

Blockchain Wallet doesn’t have real-time customer support service, often accessed via telephone or a live chat feature. 

Setting up the Blockchain crypto wallet

How to create a blockchain wallet:

Step 1: Head over to the Blockchain.com website and click on the “Create Wallet” icon. Alternatively, download the Blockchain Wallet mobile app from the Play Store or App Store and install it.

Step 2: On the registration window, enter a valid email address and create a super-strong password, then agree to the terms and conditions and click on ‘Continue.’

Step 3: You will need to verify your email address as it serves as your blockchain Wallet’s username.

Step 4: Upon email verification, you will be presented with your wallet address. Write It Down.

Step 5: Your wallet is now set, and you can start buying and selling cryptocurrencies.

How to receive cryptocurrencies into your Blockchain wallet:

Step 1: Log in to your Blockchain wallet and on the user dashboard, click ‘Request.’

Step 2: Click on the cryptocurrency you wish to receive, this will pop up the wallet address and QR Codes.

Step 3: Copy the address or the QR code and send it to the person/entity from whom you wish to receive digital currencies.

How to send cryptos into your Blockchain wallet:

Step 1: Log in to the Blockchain Wallet, and on the user dashboard, click ‘Send.’

Step 2: Choose the currency you wish to send, enter the recipient’s wallet address and transfer amount.

Step 3: The wallet will show you the totals plus transaction fees. Confirm these details and if possible, adjust the fees accordingly, to reflect the speed with which you would like the transaction processed.

Step 4: Click ‘Continue’ to complete the transaction.

Blockchain crypto wallet pros and cons:

Pros:

  • Blockchain wallet has some of the most advanced security features, from biometrics to 2FA and IP blocking.
  • The wallet also has highly advanced trading features that include real-time monitoring of the global crypto markets, in-app exchanges, and access to blockchain/cryptocurrency historical data.
  • It is a hierarchically deterministic wallet that is dedicated to preserving the user’s online privacy.
  • You don’t have to leave the wallet to exchange or swap your crypto with another or stable coins.
  • It hosts a very friendly user-interface that is easy to navigate for both crypto beginners and veterans.

Cons:

  • Blockchain wallet is a hot wallet and therefore more susceptible to online security breaches.
  • Most of its account security features are tied to identity verification, which makes it impossible to trade or hold coins anonymously on the wallet.
  • Despite the advancements, it doesn’t support fiat-to-crypto transactions.

Comparing Blockchain Crypto wallet with other cryptocurrency wallets:

Comparing Blockchain wallet with eToro

Blockchain Wallet and eToro have similar features in that you don’t have to leave the wallet to exchange or swap cryptos. They are quite insistent on solid security features around the trading account, and have established presence in every part of the world. eToro, however, carries the day when it to the number of supported currencies, the platform’s registration and regulation, and support for both fiat and cryptocurrency transactions. Blockchain Wallet.

Verdict – is Blockchain wallet safe?

Despite the fact that Blockchain Wallet is a hot crypto vault, we still consider it one of the safest cryptocurrency wallets around. It has introduced more security safeguards against unauthorized access to your account than any other hot wallet. These, plus the fact that their wallet is feature-rich, makes it a good choice for traders and investors looking for a balance between security and ease of use. These make it a good choice for traders and investors looking for a balance between security and easy to use crypto-wallets.   

 

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

Coinomi Crypto Wallet Review: Is Coinomi The Safest Wallet?

Coinomi is a multicurrency, feature-rich, and security-oriented cryptocurrency wallet app. It was launched in 2014 and has, over the years, undergone significant security and operational improvements. These have seen it attract a massive global membership and an unrivaled reputation. On the Coinomi website, the wallet is referred to as the ‘Popular choice’ that’s ‘Trusted by Millions of Users.’

The site further lists three of its key selling points: Its support for the “Broadest Range of Crypto,” the “Highest Level of Trust,” and the “Most Versatile App.” These claims are also affirmed on the Coinomi Wallet subreddit, where the company states that none of their “phone-based wallets have previously been hacked or otherwise compromised.”

But how true are these bold claims? Is Coinomi truly the safest crypto wallet app?

We sought to answer these by taking an in-depth look at Coinomi. We have evaluated its operational and security features, fees, supported currencies, and comparing it with equally reputable crypto wallets. Here are our findings:

Key Features:

Multiplatform: Coinomi started out as an Android crypto wallet app. Soon after, the iOS app was developed. In 2019, the Coinomi desktop app, compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems, was launched.

Inbuilt exchange: Coinomi wallet partners with some of the leading exchanges to provide its members with an all-round in-app exchange. Key among them are Changelly and several other DEXs that facilitate crypto-to-crypto exchanges at the most affordable rates.

Buy with a card via Simplex: In these in-app exchanges, you can buy crypto and pay directly using your credit or debit cards. The move is made possible by the integration of the wallet with the Simplex platform that facilitates fiat to crypto conversions.

DApps browser: Coinomi integrates seamlessly with some DApp browser allowing Coinomi app members to access some of the most popular decentralized apps and Web3 support without leaving the cryptocurrency wallet.

Cold staking: Coinomi wallet not only helps you store your cryptocurrencies securely for a long time, but also has a cold staking option that allows you to stake the coins in your wallet when offline and get rewarded. Investors boost your earnings on qualifying cryptocoins as one can stake their digital assets while waiting for their value to rise.

Convert coins to gift cards: In an industry first, Coinomi, in partnership with Bidali, will let you convert your digital coins into gift cards redeemable at your favorite shops.

Security features:

Password: Like any other crypto wallet app, Coinomi has the password as the first line of defense. You get to set it up during account installation, and you will need it every time you want to login to Coinomi.

Seed phrase backup: Upon creating a Coinomi wallet, you will be provided with 12 words recovery seed. This comes in handy if you ever forget your password or lose the phone or computer hosting your Coinomi wallet. Write this seed down and keep it safe.

Data encryption: The data stored in your Coinomi wallet is secured with a strong password and is also highly encrypted. Coinomi uses cryptography to encrypt this data and ensure it never leaves your wallet.

Non-custodial: Coinomi is also a non-custodial wallet and will, therefore, not store your private keys on its servers. These are under your full control and are only stored within the app with the option of writing them down on paper.

IP anonymization: To further boost user privacy, Coinomi uses IP anonymization. This randomizes your IP every time you conduct a transaction making it impossible for hackers and trackers to link different pieces of information and trace the transactions back to your wallet.

Hierarchic deterministic: The hierarchical deterministic aspect of Coinomi implies that your wallet generates a new address for each transaction. This further boosts your privacy and makes it difficult to link these transactions back to you and your wallet.

Ease of use:

The Coinomi wallet employs highly advanced and innovative technologies that allow for the creation of a sophisticated platform while keeping its dashboard neat and easy to use. The user dashboard is also customizable to some extent, with dark and light modes.

The Coinomi app is also multilingual and has been translated into more than 25 international languages, including English, French, Russian, Chinese, Italian, German, Spanish, and more.

Currencies and countries supported

Coinomi supports more cryptocurrencies, tokens, and collectibles than any other crypto wallet app and even some hardware wallets. These include 1770+ crypto coins, tokens, and stable coins, and over 125 blockchains.

Other tokens and collectibles supported on the platform include all ERC 20 components, Omni Layer, BEP-2, NEM Mosaics, and TRC 10 collectibles. Additionally, access to the DApps browser and the EOS Ecosystems allows Coinomi wallet holders to create its own tokens.

Coinomi crypto wallet cost and fees

According to the Coinomi, the website and all the transactions carried here are free. Coinomi doesn’t charge you to install and use their wallet and integrated features.

However, you will have to pay a competitive fee to the different network miners for verifying and confirming your transactions. How much you pay to buy, sell, and exchange crypto-to-crypto, therefore, depends on the networks, the transaction volume, and confirmation speeds.

This means that the transaction fees are dynamic and that you can choose to pay a higher than the standard fee to have your transaction given preference and confirmed speedily. All these fees go to the network miners and not the wallet developers.

Customer support

Coinomi maintains a comprehensive customer support department. It starts with an elaborate FAQ section on the company website. Other queries can also be pushed to the support team available 24/7 by raising a ticket or contacting them via such social media handles as Telegram, Twitter, and Reddit.

Setting up the Coinomi crypto wallet

How to install the Coinomi crypto wallet:

Step 1: Start by downloading and installing the Coinomi Wallet app from the App Store or Google Play Store.

Step 2: Click ‘Create New Wallet.’

Step 3: On the next window will appear a string of recovery sees words. Write them down in the order in which they appear and store it safely.

Step 4: The next window prompts you to set up a strong multi-character password of at least eight digits for your wallet.

Step 5: The Coinomi wallet doesn’t have default wallet addresses but prompts you to select the coins you wish to use from a dropdown list and before creating associated addresses instantaneously.

Step 6:  Read through the disclaimer and terms and conditions and agree to activate the app.

Step 7: The wallet then directs you to the user dashboard, and you are now set to start buying, selling, and swapping cryptos using Coinomi.

How to receive cryptocurrencies into your Coinomi wallet:

Step 1: Launch the Coinomi wallet user dashboard and tap the menu icon.

Step 2: From the dropdown list, click on the cryptocurrency you wish to receive to get its wallet address and QR code.

Step 3: Copy the address or the code.

Step 4: Send it to the individual, sending you coins, and wait for the balance to reflect on your wallet.

How to send cryptos into your Coinomi wallet:

Step 1: Launch the Coinomi wallet user dashboard and tap the menu icon on the left corner.

Step 2: From the dropdown menu, select the cryptocurrency you wish to send, and click on the send icon

Step 3: On the ‘Pay To’ section, enter the recipient’s wallet address and chose to scan QR code, and on the ‘Amount’ section enter the number of coins you wish to send

Step 4: Confirm that the wallet address and the amounts to be sent are correct before hitting send.

Coinomi crypto wallet pros and cons:

Pros:

  • The crypto wallet employs highly advanced security features, including Hierarchical deterministic wallets and IP anonymization.
  • The wallet has integrated shapeshift, Changelly, and other DEXs to facilitate in-app exchanges.
  • The transaction processing fees are highly competitive and open to customization for speedy confirmation.
  • The app supports the widest range of cryptocurrencies, collectibles, and tokens.
  • The app has a solid reputation with no serious customer complaints and enjoys a stellar 4.6/5 star rating on the App Store after over 16,000+ user reviews.

Cons:

  • The biggest threat to Coinomi is the fact that it is not open-sourced.
  • The crypto wallet is also not as regulated as similar projects like Coinbase or eToro.
  • It is a pure crypto-to-crypto network, and you will, therefore, have to use third-party apps like Simplex if you wish to buy crypto using fiat currency.

Comparing Coinomi Crypto wallet with other cryptocurrency wallets:

Comparing Coinomi wallet with Coinbase and eToro

When paired against similar hot wallets like Coinbase and eToro, Coinomi carries the day. Specifically, when it comes to the use of a number of supported currencies, security features, and competitive yet customized crypto transaction fees. We nonetheless believe that eToro and Coinbase have more versatile platforms as they support fiat to crypto transactions and don’t necessarily rely on third-party exchanges.

Verdict – is the Coinomi wallet safe?

Yes. The Coinomi wallet has embraced some of the most innovative security features. These include the use of passwords and recovery seeds to prevent unauthorized access to your wallet, and the possibility of private keys recovery if you lose the phone or forget the password. Others are IP Anonymization and Hierarchical Deterministic features that mask your online activity to keep off trackers and preserve your online privacy. These added to the fact that Coinomi wallets host the widest range of coins, and its versatility makes it most suitable for the highly diversified trader looking for both a highly secure and low fee crypto wallet.

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

CoolWallet S Crypto wallet review: How cool is CoolWallet S?

CoolWallet S is an innovative crypto vault by CoolBit X that blends the effectiveness of both the hardware and hot wallets to come up with the most secure hybrid crypto wallet. It has both the features of hardware and hot wallet in that it features a portable hardware component in the form of a card that’s then controlled via a crypto app. Each has its individual security measures and won’t function without the other.

The wallet offers the best of both worlds. It differs from the rest of the hardware wallets in that it uses a wireless connection to communicate with an app. And while most other hardware devices are USB-like, CoolWallet S is designed to imitate the exact dimensions, durability, and portability of a credit card. It is also waterproof, temperature resistant, and bendable.

In this CoolWallet S review, we take a deeper look into its key operational and security features, its pros and cons, and ease of use.

Key Features:

Mobile friendly: Most hardware wallets available today were designed with the desktop app, chrome extension, or a web trader in mind. They connect to a computer via a USB cable. CoolWallet S, on the other hand, is specially designed to work alongside iOS and Android-based apps.

Durable: The CoolWallet S card is made using the credit and debit card technology to make it extremely durable.

Sleek design: The CoolWallet S card has a cool design as it features an on-card screen and an authorization button.

Button: Like most USB-like hardware wallets, CoolWallet S features an on-card button used to authorize transactions or for navigating the card screen.

Inbuilt exchange: The CoolWallet S features a Changelly API that serves as its internal exchange. Using the exchange, CoolWallet S users can swap different cryptos and tokens without leaving the wallet.

Wallet connect feature: The portable wallet uses Bluetooth of the Near Field Communication features to connect wirelessly with the smartphone hosting the ColWallet S app. The connection is always shown on the card screen by the Bluetooth connection indicator, and you can use it with up to three devices.

Innovative UI: CoolWallet S presents you with two easy to use interfaces on the card and on the smartphone app. You can use to either check the balances of your digital assets, create new wallet addresses, or view your transaction history.

Security features:

Pass-code: When personalizing the card and registering with the app, you will be required to create a strong pass-code. You will need it every time you want to log into your app or card.

Biometrics security features: The app is further fortified with biometric security checks like the fingerprint and face ID. Unlike most crypto wallet apps that will use either the password or the biometric, CoolWallet S employs the 2+1 authentication features that allow you to use both the password and biometric checks to access your account.

AES 256 encrypted Bluetooth connection: The card is detached from its associated app and will only connect via a Bluetooth connection. The connection is further secured with AES-256 encryption to eliminate possible compromise of wallet data.

Seed phrase available: Like in the case of any other Crypto wallet app, CoolWallet S also has 12 words seed backup that you can use to recover your private keys in you forgot the password or if the app or card were compromised.

Hierarchically deterministic: The wallet is hierarchically deterministic, allowing you to create multiple wallet addresses that help throw off trackers.

Ease of use:

Apart from both the app and card having very friendly user interfaces, the wallet also designed with the global crypto community in mind. For instance, instead of using English words for passwords and recovery seed phrases, CoolWallet S uses numerals to accommodate the non-English speaking crypto enthusiasts.

Setting an account with CoolWallet S is also easy and straightforward. You also don’t need professional help to send/receive coins into your wallet. Plus, its simplistic app design makes exchanging currencies and tracking your crypto assets beginner-friendly.

Currencies and countries supported

CoolWallet S supports 30+ major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dash, and ZEN Cash and USDT. It also supports all ERC 20 tokens and is available in 100+ countries across the world.

CoolWallet S crypto wallet cost and fees

The CoolWallet S costs $99 or $159 when buying a pair. This gets you the CoolWallet S card, its charging dock, and a special paper where you can note down the recovery seed.

You won’t be charged for preserving your digital assets on this wallet, but sending and swapping tokens and coins on the integrated Changelly platforms attracts variable transaction fees. These are dependent on the amounts traded and the blockchain network.

Customer support

CoolWallet S has a highly responsive support team. This can be accessed by opening a support ticket on the website, via email, by contacting them via the live chat or on their different social media platforms. Most of the queries will be satisfactorily answered within two hours.

There, however, is no phone support.

Setting up the CoolWallet S crypto wallet

How to install the CoolWallet S crypto wallet:

Step 1: Start by downloading and installing the CoolWallet S app for your iOS or Android phone.

Step 2: Press the button on the card to activate it and turn on Bluetooth for your phone.

Step 3: The app will soon show a string of letters and numbers representing your wallet address. Click connect to pair.

Step 4: On the app, select ‘Create’ to start the wallet creation process.

Step 5: The app will then ask you to choose the length of your recovery seedeither12-, 18- or 24- words sets. (We advise you to use the on-card screen and not the app to select the seed set). Note the seed down on a piece of paper or save it as an image file.

Step 6: Verify that you have captured the right seed by answering a random seed query.

Step 7: Click the ‘Create a New Wallet’ option on the app to finish the setup process.

(You can now activate the biometric security features on the settings page of your app).

How to receive cryptocurrencies into your CoolWallet S:

Step 1: Log in to your CoolWallet S app and select Receive on the user dashboard.

Step 2: Click on the crypto/token you would like to receive (if not listed, add it automatically at the coin display tab on the settings page).

Step 3: Clicking on the cryptocurrency will display your wallet address and QR code.

Step 4: Copy either and send them to the individual/entity, sending you the coins.

How to send cryptos into your CoolWallet S:

Step 1: Log in to your CoolWallet S app and select Send on the user dashboard.

Step 2: On the pop-up menu, enter the recipient’s wallet address in the TO field and the number of coins you wish to send.

Step 3: Chose the cryptocurrency you wish to send.

Step 4: Review the transaction by confirming the amounts to send and the recipient’s wallet address. This tab will also display the transaction fee that you can modify based on the speed at which you would like to have the order confirmed.

Step 5: Press ‘Send.’

CoolWallet S crypto wallet pros and cons:

Pros:

  • The wallet embraces a multi-layered security protocol guaranteeing the absolute safety of your private keys.
  • CoolWallet S has a sleek design that isn’t just highly portable but also quite convenient.
  • Provides a one of a kind offline wireless storage for your digital assets.
  • It is easy to set up and use for crypto beginners due to its very friendly and simplistic user interface.
  • CoolWallet S hosts a number of important features that include the Changelly API that allows for swaps and in-app crypto exchanges.

Cons:

  • At $99, it is more expensive than equally reliable hardware crypto wallets like Trezor or Ledger Nano.
  • It supports a limited number of cryptocurrencies (less than a hundred) compared to other hardware wallets that support 1000+ coin and tokens.
  • The CoolWallet S technology isn’t open sourced and thus inadequately audited.
  • You will have to re-enter the seed words every time the app/card firmware is updated, which can be cumbersome.

Comparing CoolWallet S with other cryptocurrency wallets:

Comparing CoolWallet S with Ledger Nano S hardware wallet

CoolWallet S can be said to have employed more security measures to fortify both the app and card than Ledger Nano S hardware wallet. It is also more versatile as it features a larger on-card screen and probably easier wallet setup process. The Ledger Nano S hardware wallet, on the other, carries the day when it comes to the number of supported cryptocurrencies. It is also more affordable and even more reputable based on its developer’s exposure to the crypto world and by virtue of having been a pioneer hardware wallet.

Verdict – is CoolWallet S safe?

CoolWallet S is, without a doubt, one of the safest cryptocurrency wallets available today. It is also is one of the most versatile, given that you can use either the mobile app or the card-like hardware device to monitor your digital assets. And this makes it appealing to both the low-volume traders and high-volume investors alike. To enjoy these benefits, however, you will need to dig deeper into your pockets. 

Categories
Forex Signals

Bitcoin Breaks the triangle formation to the Upside

The Setup

Bitcoin has been creating a consolidation range after the extensive bullish impulse made on April 29. The consolidation is also within the upward channel. Lately, the price is making a breakout of the triangle, and above the $9,000 resistance level. Also, the MACD made a bullish crossover, and the RSI is progressing and touching the 60 level.

Also, BTC price moves above its 20-, 50- and 200-period SMA which means the underlying trend is up.

A trading plan can be made, assuming the continuation of the bullish trend, with an entry above the current price of $9,100, with a stop below the recent low, and betting that at least the price will try to hit the last high of $9,442

The key levels

Risk and Reward

This trade has a $300 risk and $340 profit. for every bitcoin unit.

Reward/risk = 1.13

We recommend taking no more than 0.1 BTC for every $1000 in your account.

 

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, May 6 – China’s Digital Yuan to Fully Replace Cash? Former BoC President Discusses

The cryptocurrency market has spent the day consolidating and testing its support and (in a rare case) resistance levels. Bitcoin is currently trading for $8,954, which represents n increase of 1.12% on the day. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 0.86% on the day, while XRP went down by 0.57%.

DigiByte took the position of today’s most prominent daily gainer, with gains of 23.49%. Hyperion lost 31.82% on the day, making it the most prominent daily loser.

Bitcoin’s dominance stayed at the same place in the past 24 hours, with its value currently at 66.54%. This value represents a 0.09% difference to the upside.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization stayed at the same place when compared to yesterday’s value, with its current value being $248.89 billion. This value represents an increase of $0.24 billion when compared to the value it had yesterday.

Honorable mention

Digital Yuan replacing cash

Li Lihui, former Bank of China President, announced that the launch of the digital yuan is certain and that it could replace cash, but only if four circumstances are met. These features of digital yuan would be:

  • greater efficiency
  • lower transaction costs
  • enough economic scale alongside commercial value
  • peoples’ acceptance

The central bank of China is currently testing digital yuan. The tests are currently showing great interest approval of the current users, as well as a surge of new users.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap spent another day trying to find its place to consolidate at or to escape the narrow ranges it has been in for the past couple of days. Bitcoin tested both the $8,820 support and $9,120 resistance, as well as the middle level of $8,980. While the price is currently slightly below the $8,980 level, it is unknown where Bitcoin will go in the short term, and traders should wait for a move towards either side with large enough volume.


Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $8,980                                           1: $8,820

2: $9,120                                           2: $8,650

3: $9,250                                            3: $8,000

Ethereum

Ethereum lost some of the gains it made as the price had a mini-meltdown that brought it from $212 to $200. Ethereum is trading in a wide range, bound by the $198 support level and the $217.6 resistance level. One more level between these two might emerge in the very near future. Traders should proceed with caution around $210-$215 levels but can trade within this range.


Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $217.6                                            1: $198

2: $225.5                                           2: $193.6

3: $240                                               3: $185

Ripple

XRP spent its day testing its $0.214 support level. The price fell under the level a couple of times but managed to spring back up extremely fast. While the support seems strong enough, the lack of volatility and volume indicates preparation for the next big move. Whether the move will be caused by Bitcoin’s rise/fall or if it will be caused by XRP itself is unknown. However, traders should have an easy time spotting the difference in volume and trading alongside the move that is to come.


Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.227                                           1: $$0.214

2: $0.235                                           2: $0.205

3: $0.285                                           3: $0.2

 

Categories
Crypto Videos

Develop A Proper Actionable Crypto Trading Strategy & Conquer The Markets

 

Developing a profitable cryptocurrency trading strategy – guide

Trading and investing in cryptocurrencies are a bit different from investing in other classes of assets. Crypto trading extremely risky due to its high volatility, price fluctuations, and limited regulations surrounding it. However, trading cryptocurrencies can be extremely lucrative if a proper trading strategy is utilized. This guide will explain how to create a profitable cryptocurrency trading strategy.

Select a reliable exchange and a cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency exchange is a platform where you can trade your cryptocurrencies, and choosing a reliable platform increases your profit potential. Choose a platform based on volume, trading fees, the safety of the platform, as well as its supported coins.

Do proper research

Doing proper research on the cryptocurrencies that you are thinking of trading is a no-brainer. You should trade cryptocurrencies that you believe in, but also those where you can get a quick profit by riding the hype train. The cryptocurrency market is different from other markets in the fact that its average investor is much more susceptible to the hype as well as fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
On top of that, doing proper research also translates to after you create the strategy you want to use. Each and every strategy needs to be backtested to see if it does well in bear, bull, or ranging markets. A strategy doesn’t have to be one-size-fits-all; you can rather have a separate strategy for different market movements.

Invest money that you can afford to lose

Crypto trading and gambling have a subtle similarity – they both warn the players about the limit that goes beyond the risk. In both cases, players (which are in this case traders) should only play up to the bankroll limit they are fine with losing.

Expect returns at regular intervals

It is common that the market sometimes doesn’t go your way, or that it goes better than expected. Traders should not be emotional when it comes to either gains or losses, but they should rather track their returns on a long-term basis in order to avoid the spread.
Only in the case that a strategy is unprofitable for a longer period should the trader reconsider changing it. Losses will always be a part of a trader’s life, even with the best strategy.

Utilize both fundamental and technical analysis

Traders should utilize every tool at their disposal in order to increase their profitability. Fundamental and technical analysis are two sides of the same coin, and they should both be taken extremely seriously.
While technical analysis may come as second nature to some traders, fundamental analysis of cryptocurrencies is usually not as easy. Since there are no clear ways of performing fundamental analysis with cryptocurrencies, one has to rely on knowing the coins they are trading inside-and-out from a tech standpoint, as well as to constantly track the investor sentiment in order to become a truly profitable trader.

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

Should You Invest in Cryptocurrency Loans? 

Cryptocurrencies have generated a variety of opportunities for investors to make money. Perhaps the most common one is the commercialization of mining, which by itself is rewarding, but the overhead costs can sometimes exceed the rewards. 

Apart from mining, investors can engage in other profitable operations either linked to the dynamic crypto market, or those that are similar to the conventional economy. 

A good example is the crypto lending concept, which is similar to traditional lending, only that it has the potential to generate higher interest rates. So, how is this concept beneficial to the lender and borrower? Before we answer that, let’s understand how cryptocurrency lending works. 

The Basics of Crypto Lending 

Essentially, crypto lending is a practice of lending digital assets to borrowers who then pay back at a predetermined interest rate. It’s usually done in a peer to peer platform where the borrower must put up some collateral, either fiat currency or digital assets, in order to be approved for a loan. The borrower will then repay the lender using their own tokens or fiat currency after a specific duration of time set by the lender. 

More often than not, crypto-based lending is done for margin trading purposes. In this case, a borrower can either take a long or short position. With a long position, the borrower believes that the price of a certain crypto asset will certainly go up. As such, they’ll request to lend some of your funds through the platform to increase their capital and enjoy bigger profits. It should be noted that the interest rate and payback period is set by the lender. 

For example, say, you are a borrower with $2,000 worth of Bitcoins, which is currently priced at $20,000. This means that you have 0.1 BTC. Now, let’s say you take a long position and borrow $500 against your $2,000 holdings. You’ll now have 0.15 BTC. If the BTC price indeed increases by say 10% to $22,000, your total holdings, including the borrowed amount, will be $2,750. Once you pay back the loan, you’ll have earned more profit – about 25% – than you could have earned with your initial amount. 

Taking a short position works pretty much the same way, only that now you’ll be betting on the falling prices. As such, you borrow the coins when the price is high and sell them when the price is still high. Once the price has fallen, you buy back the coins and refund them to the lender plus the interest. The price difference is your profit, while the interest paid back is the lender’s profit. So, both parties win. 

Is Crypto-lending Safe? 

Like any other form of peer-to-peer lending, crypto-lending comes with its risks. The biggest concern arises from whether there is a guarantee of lenders getting their money back or not. 

To solve this, crypto lending platforms require all borrowers to put up collateral worth more than the amount they intend to borrow. Typically, this concept is referred to as the loan-to-value ratio, which ranges between 60 to 70%, meaning a borrower can only take an amount worth less than the set percentage limit.

Also, if the prices go contrary to what a borrower anticipated, and the loan amount is lower than the margin limit, all their holdings will be liquidated to ensure the lender receives their full lent amount. This goes a long way toward protecting the lender from market volatility. 

Other safeguarding measures put in place include lending the platform your holdings directly. This way, you’ll have peace of mind since you’re lending the exchange and not an individual. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cryptocurrency Loans 

In an ideal scenario, cryptocurrency loans are profitable to both the lender and the borrower, but they still come with their own pros and cons. Here’s a look at some of them;

One of the biggest advantages of crypto-lending is that it’s easy to set up an account and get started. As such, there are no skill-sets required, unlike mining or trading. 

Also, compared to mining, lending, and borrowing crypto-asset loans is a more affordable way of earning returns. Also, it doesn’t require you to check on your funds regularly since there aren’t any fast actions involved. In fact, as a lender, some platforms allow you to automate your lending account, such that you receive the paybacks without necessarily monitoring your account. 

On the downside, however, there are no unified taxation and regulatory policies governing the lending process. This makes it hard for individuals to know the tax implications of their lending activities. In the same vein, should there be any dispute, it will be solved according to the regulations of both users and the platform’s jurisdiction. 

Besides the regulation hurdle, some platforms tend to charge high commission rates out of the interest rates paid back by the borrower. What’s even worse is that the commission amounts are set daily and not over the full course of the loan. As a lender, this means that your profit amount is never guaranteed. 

Choosing the Right Platform

Generally, there are two types of crypto-lending platforms to choose from – centralized and decentralized. 

  • Centralized Lending Platforms

Centralized crypto lending platforms are similar to traditional fintech companies that deal with digital assets. This means that they operate under regulations set by a central intermediary who also manages the loan matching process as well as keeps the custody of all assets. 

The platform usually sets the interest rates which are favorable to both the lender and borrower. 

  • Decentralized Lending Platforms

As the name suggests, these platforms aren’t controlled by an intermediary or central authority. They don’t follow the Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, nor do they keep custody of the digital assets. 

Also, except for a few, most decentralized platforms have variable interest rates, depending on the demand and supply of the asset on the platform. So, it would be safe to assume that decentralized crypto-lending platforms can be more profitable to a lender than their counterparts. 

Key Takeaways 

If you hold a substantial amount of cryptocurrencies but don’t have immediate intention to use or sell them, investing them in a crypto-lending platform can be a sound investment. This way, you’ll earn passive income while still holding your initial crypto amount. Well, the earned interest may not be much but think of crypto loans as a diversification investment tool. More so, you can leave the interest to accumulate to significant amounts or re-invest it to earn more returns.  

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Cryptocurrencies

What are Pegged Cryptocurrencies? 

The violent price swings witnessed in the crypto market is part of the reason why virtual currencies haven’t found favor in the public’s eye. While the volatility can result in quick gains, unexpected losses are also inevitable. This explains why digital currencies are more speculative investments than a store of value. It’s even harder for merchants to accept cryptocurrencies as payment due to their dynamic prices. 

However, the recent entry of pegged cryptocurrencies is proving to be a solution to the crypto market’s volatility. In fact, they have the potential to win more investors into the virtual currency space, making digital assets acceptable across the world. But what exactly is a pegged cryptocurrency? 

Pegged Cryptocurrency Overview 

Pegging is a financial concept whereby an unstable asset is tied to a more stable asset to mitigate volatility. 

Similarly, when a digital currency’s value is tied to that of some other medium of exchange, it is said to be pegged. Usually, the coin is tied to a stable fiat currency such as the US dollar, gold, or any other bank-issued currency. Tether is an ideal example of a pegged cryptocurrency whose value is tied to the US dollar. 

In addition to being an alternative store of value, pegged cryptocurrencies help compliment the typical cryptocurrency trading.

If, for instance, you made huge gains from trading volatile cryptocurrencies but fear that the gains might evaporate soon, you can safeguard your gains by trading them for Tether tokens, usually denoted as USDT. This way, even if the dollar loses its value, the price decline won’t be as huge as that experienced in the digital currency market. 

Also, in a bearish market, pegged cryptocurrencies can be used to increase the number of tokens/coins in your portfolio. This is especially true because a pegged currency’s value isn’t affected when the market dips. But since it’s still available in the crypto market and has not been exchanged into fiat currency, you can leverage on the dip by making more purchases to increase your coin/token holdings. 

How Crypto Pegging Works

Cryptocurrency developers wishing to peg their tokens to a stable asset must at all times have the actual asset in reserve as proof of pegging. This is to say that if a cryptocurrency is backed by gold or the US dollar, the project developers should have vast amounts of gold/dollars in vaults to guarantee the pegged value of their tokens. 

In the case of Tether, each token of the coin is tied to the value of one US dollar. Should the coin fail for some reason, investors can then go to developers to claim a refund that is proportional to the number of tokens that they held.

Benefits of Pegged Cryptocurrencies

There is more to pegged cryptocurrencies than just being an alternative hedge against market volatility. 

  • Improved Liquidity 

Compared to typical cryptocurrencies, pegged tokens can be liquidated easily and faster. This is especially true for coins pegged to a fiat currency. They serve as a liquidity vent through which other digital currencies can be swapped for more stable assets. 

  • Offer Affordable Remittance Transaction Cost

Sending remittances overseas is characterized by high transaction costs. If you are sending the funds in the form of digital currency, for instance, Bitcoin, the process is overly slow and sometimes expensive. It becomes even more expensive when you factor in the volatility of the coin, which may result in the recipient receiving less than the amount expected. At the same time, sending fiat currencies overseas has its own challenges, such as an amount limit which you can send at any given time, as well as accumulating transaction costs. 

Pegged cryptos, on the other hand, offer the best of both worlds. First, they are less affected by the market movements, which helps minimize transaction fees. Also, since they are virtual currencies by nature, they aren’t affected by remittance transfer limits.

As such, they can be transferred to various jurisdictions in an affordable process compared to money transfers. Once you consider the foreign exchange-swapping hurdles that plague fiat currency transfers, it becomes even clearer as to why pegged cryptocurrencies are the most viable option. 

Risks Associated with Pegged Cryptocurrencies

One of the biggest risks associated with pegged cryptocurrencies is investors can never be sure if a coin is backed up by real funds. For this reason, before investing in a pegged cryptocurrency, note that it is not enough for a developer to simply claim that their coin is pegged. They must be transparent with their reserves by providing physical proof that the backup funds are available. Ideally, the developers should be open to third-party audits of their financials to verify that indeed the coin is backed up by a stable medium of exchange. 

Also, the fact that a coin is backed up by physical funds stored in large amounts is a problem in itself. It means that the funds are prone to theft and can even disappear for some other reason, causing a decline in the token’s value. Such cases mainly affect gold-pegged cryptocurrencies. Therefore, investors should examine the credibility of who stores the gold of a particular coin and where it is housed. 

For coins pegged to a fiat currency, the government doesn’t take kindly to developers linking a product to the value of a central bank currency. To successfully peg their currency, the developers are required to obtain the necessary paperwork and license as well as maintain a public record of their holdings. So, be sure to check the whitepaper of a pegged crypto to ascertain whether it maintains compliance. 

At the same time, it is pretty hard to make profits from a pegged cryptocurrency. This is because the buying and selling price of the digital coin has the same value as that of the fiat currency. It’s probably the reason why developers fail to convince investors to store their assets in digital tokens instead of fiat currency. 

Conclusion

Unfortunately, there have been only a handful of successful pegged cryptocurrencies in the market. Nonetheless, it’s undeniable that they play a vital role in bridging the gap between the crypto-space and the traditional economy. With time, as more developers continue to launch pegged cryptos, their role will be appreciated and eventually bring in more investors in the market.