Archive for Cryptocurrency

‘Monopoly’-Style Blockchain Property Buying and selling Game Raises $2 million

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What if game Monopoly was created today? Of course, paper money (cash) still exists, but now we have credit cards, stocks, cryptocurrencies and other options. Well, I know a version uses a sort of “credit card”, but now a new company gave more two steps and is creating a version with its own cryptocurrency – CryptoKitties – and, IMHO, it may be only the tip of iceberg, because we can see such technology in other games – including MMO, adult and gambling games, and it will “change the game completely”. Well, let’s check what is happening:

FinLab EOS VC Fund and many private investors have invested a combined two million in Uplandme, maker of the digital property-buying and selling game running on the top from the EOS blockchain.


The funds will be employed to offer the development and launch of Upland, that is presently obtainable in beta, and can become broadly available later this season. 


Billed as “‘Monopoly’ meets blockchain,” as with the classic Parker Siblings game, the sport enables players to purchase, sell, and trade imaginary qualities according to real-world addresses. The twist is the fact that rather of paper cards, it uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs), or digital collectibles much like CryptoKitties, to confer possession of the asset.


Unlike most digital games, however, properties which are documented on the blockchain through the game play is going to be truly of players, and not the gaming company, Uplandme states. Just like in tangible existence, land within this virtual realm has a fixed supply. 


“We expect the game momentum is going to be driven through the inescapable fact that there’s an all natural scarcity of accessible qualities since they’re according to real-world addresses,” said Uplandme co-founder Dirk Lueth.


Lueth and the partners, Mani Honigstein and Idan Zuckerman, try to disrupt the $50 billion marketplace for casual (store bought) games.


“One game night, while playing Monopoly and watching the Netflix series ‘Stranger Things’ we’ve got considering a house game inside a parallel world and recognized how qualities that derive from real-world addresses could possibly be the perfect collectible NFT,” Lueth told CoinDesk.

Community chest

Private investors within the seed round include Kai Bolik, co-founder and Chief executive officer of Gameduell, a gaming community using more than 70 games and 130 million players worldwide Jan Sprengnetter, Chief executive officer of Sprengnetter Group, a house valuation provider and Markus Ogurek, an old v . p . of H . P . Enterprise.


Charge investor, FinLab EOS VC Fund, is supported by Block.one, the organization that built the EOS blockchain, and FinLab AG, which concentrates on purchasing German financial technology companies. 


“We invested into Uplandme, Corporation. because we love to the real concept of an online property market powered through the EOS Blockchain and also the very experienced and passionate team behind it,” said Stefan Schuetze, md of FinLab EOS VC Fund.


To be certain, Upland is a among many blockchain-based games in a variety of stages of development.


Upland players will have the ability to trade their qualities on the industry for an in-game currency known as UPX. Beta testers are presently in a position to trade qualities inside a virtual Bay Area.

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Visa Goes Accept Blockchain-Powered Business Payments Service

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After almost three years since it was announced, Visa finally launched its blockchain-powered payment service called Visa Business to Business Connect. Read it in following article, from CoinDesk.com:

Visa’s blockchain-powered business-to-business payments service, first published in October 2016, has formally gone live.


Reported by Reuters on Tuesday,  the instalments giant has launched its Visa Business to business Connect network – something that was initially developed alongside blockchain startup Chain.


Visa Business to business Connect at launch assists companies trying to make payments to 30 markets, based on the report, with 90 more corridors.


The service continues to be made to help Visa’s corporate clients sidestep the slow correspondent banking network, opening immediate worldwide payments utilizing a system partly operated by distributed ledger technology (DLT).


“By developing a solution that facilitates direct, bank to bank transactions, we’re eliminating friction connected with key industry discomfort points,” Kevin Phalen, SVP, global mind of Visa Business Solutions, was quoted as saying inside a statement.


Phalen told Reuters the network isn’t fully with different distributed ledger, nevertheless the technology has been utilized for many elements because it enables more payment information than traditional systems.


Even though Chain, which builds blockchains to aid economic climates, had performed a significant part in the introduction of Visa Business to business Connect in the early iterations, Visa ultimately switched to Hyperledger Fabric for that DLT side from the system with the help of IBM. Visa particularly required part in Chain’s $30m funding round in the fall of 2015.


Visa Business to business Connect was initially folded in an pilot phase to check bank-to-bank connections in November 2017.

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Philippines Central Bank Warns on Perils of Growing Cryptocurrency Use

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The website CoinDesk.com published news about a warning from Philippines Central Bank about risks of excessive cryptocurrency usage. Now, let’s check what is happening:

The Philippines central bank has cautioned within the perils of growing cryptocurrency use in the United States. On Monday, The Philippine Star quoted Benjamin Diokno, governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, as saying his institution would still address using cryptocurrencies, especially because of the tech’s potential use within the funding of terrorism.


The central bank’s deputy governor, Diwa Guinigundo, also spoke of cryptocurrency’s limitations as an alternative for fiat money, like a medium of exchange and actual value.


And, while cryptos and blockchain could be helpful for settlement, they effectively allow users to sidestep the banking system.


Guinigundo stated:



“For this reason, game theory dictates possible disorder when there’s market breakdown, when everybody may distrust each other. There can’t be a complete disregard for any central bank or a 3rd party that gives loan provider of last measure facility.”


To balance encouraging innovation with risk minimization, the central bank would rather use regulatory sandboxes to help keep oversight of these technology, Guinigundo stated.


The central bank execs’ warning may come as utilization of cryptocurrencies within the Philippines still rise. The PhilStar formerly reported that virtual currency transactions within the Southeast Asian nation almost bending from $189.18 million in 2017 to $390.37 million this past year, according to data published by the central bank’s Technology Risk and Innovation Supervision Department.


Individuals transactions within the Philippines include conversions from Philippines pesos along with other fiat currencies to cryptocurrencies and the other way around, in addition to inbound worldwide remittances facilitated through cryptocurrencies.


As a result of the boost in use, the central bank in Feb 2017 issued a circular mandating cryptocurrency exchanges to join up using the central bank as remittance and transfer companies, and additional needed these lenders to setup safeguards to make sure consumer protection and counter illicit transactions for example money washing and terrorist financing.


The central bank stressed that it doesn’t plan to endorse any cryptocurrency, as it is neither issued or guaranteed with a central bank or supported by an investment. Nonetheless, the institution stated it aims to manage the tech when employed for delivery of monetary services, designed for payments and remittances, to make sure consumer protection and financial stability.

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Pan-African Insurer Old Mutual Won’t Insure Mining Rigs

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The Old Mutual, a pan-African insurance provider, communicated to press and customers that it won’t insure “crypto mining equipment”, due to high costs and risks involved and speculative nature. They also commented about others problems around crypto market, like money washing tactics and possible use in cyber crimes. Let’s check it!

Old Mutual, a legacy, pan-African insurance provider, announced it won’t insure equipment employed for cryptocurrency mining, based on an announcement released June 10. The organization cites the cost, risk, and speculative nature of the profession.


Africa contributes under 10 % from the total bitcoin hash rate, based on Bitcoin Magazine. Many advocates for that fledgling industry think strict rules, pricey electricity prices, and mining rig cost tags are stopping it from developing — an issue which will only worsen if miners cannot remove protection on their own gear.


Old Mutual isn’t the first to ban coverage for mining equipment or cost premiums outdoors the achieve of numerous hobbyists. Cryptocurrencies are frequently considered a good thing class having a different risk profile than other kinds of capital, and could carry premiums that reflect that risk.


Following extensive research, plus an in-depth overview of claims from clients which have incurred losses to equipment employed for cryptocurrency mining, Old Mutual stated it’s begun counseling its branches to not insure any companies associated with.


“We have decided to not provide cover this kind of risk because it is quite challenging conduct an effective risk analysis of the unregulated fledgling industry that’s already around the radar of monetary government bodies because of the unfortunate connection to money washing and cyber crime,” stated Old Mutual insurance expert Christelle Colman.


The insurer notes crypto mining operations typically utilize high-cost computers, servers along with other equipment modified to operate heftier application-specific integrated circuit devices that may overload the computer’s central processing units or graphic processing units. In addition, managing a system constantly, which the organization alleges is industry practice, introduces perils of overheating along with other malfunctions.

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Enigma Launches Second Testnet for ‘Secret Contract’ Blockchain

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According to CoinDesk.com, a data privacy startup is launching a test network for Ethereum developers aiming to test building and attacks against “secret contracts”. Well, we can’t say no one is interested and investing and future of crypto market – improvements in blockchain network would leverage not only cryptotransactions, but also any other areas needing guarantee their contracts – in this case, sigilous contracts. Now, let’s check what is happening:

Data privacy startup Enigma is formally launching its second test network for ethereum developers.


As the code for that second testnet developer release continues to be on GitHub since a week ago, the Enigma team announced today new developer guidelines and walk-through documentation to supplement the discharge.


In interview with CoinDesk,  Tor Bair – mind of growth and marketing for Enigma – positioned the launch for more developers than ever before to construct specialized smart contracts known as “secret contracts.” The Enigma project – initially incubated at Durch Media Labs – aims to produce a secure, off-chain atmosphere in a position to process sensitive and blockchain data with finish-to-finish file encryption.


These secret contracts can perform off-chain computations on encrypted data leveraging the Enigma protocol. As the protocol isn’t yet survive ethereum mainnet, the discharge creates developers to begin building code that may be then immediately deployed onto Enigma’s first networked protocol – dubbed Discovery – once formally activated.


“We’re releasing the developer testnet release to ensure that our partners and buddies could possibly get a jumpstart on development to ensure that when Discovery is survive ethereum mainnet, we are able to have live applications [around the network] straightaway,” stated Bair.


He added that unlike last year’s testnet release in This summer 2018, today’s release is regarded as “from a developer experience almost just like what it will likely be once the public networked form of the [Enigma] protocol really launches.”


Bair emphasized:



“The developer experience is really set with this particular release.”


Getting fundraised $45 million within an initial gold coin offering in 2017, Discovery was really likely to go survive ethereum mainnet this past year. However, for various different reasons, the Enigma team announced in September a delayed timeline to higher secure the lengthy-term interests from the project.

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UBC Adds Blockchain Program for Master’s and PhD Students

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According to CoinDesk.com, a Canadian university will initiate a Master’s Program in Blockchain – it can be really great, by helping to leverage research and blockchain techonologies and, consequently, improving the future of cryptocoins. Well, enough is enough, let’s read and understand a little more: 

Certainly one of Canada’s leading research universities, the UBC, is launching a blockchain tech training path for graduated pupils.


Based on the UBC, this program is really a first in Canada. The track will concentrate on four areas: overall health, clean energy, regulatory technology and issues for Indigenous residents, and will formally launch next The month of january. 


“The initiative allows students to build up the abilities around emerging technologies which are very popular in addition to drive economic growth as graduates meet the increasing demand in the market,” stated Victoria Lemieux, UBC iSchool affiliate professor and founding father of Blockchain@UBC, inside a statement.


UBC aims to coach 139 students over six years, and make out services for existing master’s and PhD students in educationally adjacent areas. Interested students don’t need to arrived at this program with blockchain experience.


The initiative is based on 15 industry partners from an array of sectors, including Boehringer Ingelheim, a pharmaceutical company with internet sales close to 17.5 billion euros in 2018.


Mitacs, a not-for-profit that actually works with federal and municipal governments to aid industrial innovation, may also provide $1.324 million over six years. Furthermore, the company will fund 18 master’s and eight PhD internships within the field, representing a possible worth of over $2.44 million for 156 internships and publish-doctorate training projects during the period of their bond.


Furthermore, Blockchain@UBC receives support through UBC’s Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters program. Its research papers and projects bring academics and industry partners together to understand more about issues in emerging blockchain technologies. Past educational initiatives have spanned undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels. 


UBC’s newest initiative is going to be trained by UBC faculty from diverse disciplines, including natural science, FinTech, engineering and information technology, and knowledge governance, in addition to non-STEM fields.


“Complex, wicked problems need a collision of perspectives,” Victoria Lemieux told CoinDesk, talking about the difficulties in blockchain education.

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‘It Seems Like Family’: Bitcoiners Gather for Security Conference in Amsterdam

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The website CoinDesk.com published news about a meeting with bitcoiners in an Amsterdam pub. I’m not sure if it’ll generate the new big crypto coin, but we need admit it should be some kind of fun, no? Now, let’s check what is happening:

A quick breeze taken over the canal and right into a small Amsterdam pub, where about 30 bitcoiners sitting consuming beers and subscribing to Breaking Bitcoin 2019. It smelled like rain.


From the British mother who works at home like a “bitcoin hobbyist,” to some ripped Kiwi technologist having a thick beard, individuals who use bitcoin collected to joke about Crypto, Twitter and nodes.


These were in Amsterdam for probably the most esteemed security conferences within the blockchain industry. But about this wet Friday, they’d are available for some thing.


“It seems like family,” the hobbyist trader stated.


Most of them compensated for beers and snacks with bitcoin, utilizing a lighting-friendly wallet along with a point-of-purchase device produced by the Amsterdam-based startup Bitonic, founded this year.


“We might have lost a few of the market,” Bitonic’s mind of strategy, Daan Kleiman, told CoinDesk about the choice to focus purely on bitcoin, “but we cost nothing to create our very own decisions with no pressure from investment capital. This will make our growth very natural and healthy within this complex market with many different scams and impractical promises.”


But growth wasn’t the primary focus the next weekend in the conference itself. Rather, the panels and presentations at Breaking Bitcoin 2019 explored the premier cryptocurrency’s vulnerabilities, from political attack vectors to security holes.


In the operational finish from the spectrum, there is bitcoin advocate Udi Wertheimer, who revealed Wasabi Wallet’s privacy features could really be leveraged to de-anonymize users. (The wallet’s creator quickly responded on Twitter to go over issues in the presentation.)


There were the greater-level challenges, like the social and economic perils of bitcoin. On the panel going through the subject, vagabond bitcoin consultant Felix Weis stated if nearly all bitcoin users still trust custodians and exchanges to carry the non-public secrets of their assets, then such companies could gain disproportionate sway within the technology’s evolution.


Each talk left the crowd feeling that addressing this unique issue could bring bitcoin a measure nearer to lengthy-lasting value. And even though creating a sustainable-yet-decentralized type of cash is still an ambitious goal, at the best, nothing excites bitcoiners that can compare with a apparently impossible challenge.

Users and limitations

Despite how couple of people spend bitcoin today, with Chainalysis estimating merchant activity represents only one.3 % of bitcoin activity, many developers in the conference in Amsterdam use bitcoin for freelance focus on free projects.


Such was the situation with Weis and Lightning Labs co-founder Olaoluwa Osuntokun, who compensated contributors to his startup’s implementation from the bitcoin scaling solution lightning. From Osuntokun’s perspective, regulation presents a bigger barrier to bitcoin adoption compared to small pool of users.


“The greatest risk likely originates from condition-level actors trying to stifle the introduction of software associated with bitcoin,” Osuntokun told CoinDesk. “Network-level partitioning attacks, and tries to control the import/export of mining equipment.”


Throughout the social risks panel with Weis, Bitcoin Magazine editor Aaron van Wirdum agreed that new rules such as the approaching requirement through the Financial Action Task Pressure (FATF) – that could pressure companies to talk about customer data across jurisdictions whenever users send money in one exchange or custodian to a different – presents a salient risk to bitcoin users’ privacy and ale companies to uphold a cypherpunk ethos.


The vibe at Breaking Bitcoin was positive, even exuberant. Along individuals lines, several conference attendees were independent researchers presenting prospective methods to small, specific issues with using bitcoin.


“I’ve progressed from somebody that was looking forward to [bitcoin],” Seoul Bitcoin Meetup founder Ruben Somen told CoinDesk, “to somebody that explains it at meetups, to now potentially adding something.”


Somen was there presenting his idea for a bitcoin-related protocol for immediate off-chain transactions without the headache of lightning channels.


To summarize his presentation, in a manner that epitomized the conference’s gamification of critique, Somen clarified audience questions poking holes in the proposal. In the end, as Bitcoin Core developer Matt Corallo stated throughout a panel about lightning:



“Bitcoin continues to be in beta … decentralization is definitely an experiment.”

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Coinbase Expands Cryptocurrency Visa An Atm Card Across Europe

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The website CoinDesk.com published news about Coinbase tries to deploy its own Visa bank card. Hey, it can mean something big, for sure, if it works and lasts. Now, let’s check what is happening:
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has expanded its Visa bank card plan to six countries in Europe, allowing customers in the area to invest their digital assets. Based on a study from CNBC on Wednesday, the Coinbase Card has become readily available for users in some countries: Germany, France, Italia, Ireland, and also the Netherlands.

Using the card, customers can spend their cryptocurrency assets including bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin both on the internet and physical stores that accept Visa. Coinbase first folded out a cryptocurrency Visa bank card in April, solely for users located in the U.K. at that time.

Zeeshan Feroz, Chief executive officer of Coinbase U.K., didn’t disclose the number of users the firm had registered since April but stated within an interview with CNBC it had “blew past” the first 1,000 cards issued to customers free of charge.

As formerly as reported by CoinDesk, Coinbase Cards are associated with a mobile application on both Android and iOS devices, by which customers can choose which kind of cryptocurrency they wish to use to finance each spending.

That stated, clients are in a roundabout way having to pay retailers with crypto assets. Rather, Coinbase charges a charge to assist convert users’ cryptocurrencies right into a fiat currency, i.e. euro within the new offering.

The firm partners with PaySafe, a U.K. payment processor, to issue them, a Coinbase spokesperson told CoinDesk before.

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How To Purchase Bitcoins

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We are living unique and transforming times and we wish big and quick profits, and here we can talk about Bitcoin, the first (but no more unique) cryptocurrency. It’s some way controversial due to its volatility, due to by means of possible failures in transactions and due to their in-traceability meant Bitcoin became a favorite payment method for many criminals.

Gradually, Bitcoin and other altcoins get started to mature in which among the big exchange companies, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy, the currency gets some stability permitting investors better measure no matter whether to threat their income inside a virtual currency.

Volatility

The Bitcoin market is too small yet, so it’s important to understand that any news can have devastating effects on the price. In the long run Bitcoins have shown great potential, so, even with oscilations, that coin has more potential to get an increase in its value than decline. Most brokers suggest that you simply contemplate Bitcoin a medium to extended term investment due to its volatility. We can compare such investments with real estate. When purchasing houses and apartments, the long run can beat short run. Same way for Bitcoins. Yeah, there are some daily traders trying their luck with those altcoins, but many analysts consider possibility to get that it really is most likely the cost of Bitcoins will rise lengthy term since they may be becoming much more extensively accepted.

Influencers

As with all economic instruments, basic rules like supply and demand tools . and even if you consider Bitcoin has caused fluctuations, understand that ups and downs of the :

• The bankruptcy of MtGox, certainly one of the most significant Bitcoin exchanges

• The closing down of Silk Road which allegedly accepted Bitcoins for drug trading

• The disclosure by the US government that, in spite of the adverse makes use of of Bitcoins, they believed that the currency had a future

• The media has also stirred up interest by reporting on milestones within the currency’s rise and fall, trumpeting the rise to more than $1000 and its subsequent plummet on negative publicity.

So you should consider to sit and watch for some days to acquire an concept of how the currency trades, its volatility and trends. Rumors can affect the worth, and you should start investing a tiny quantity and following for possibilities, a little similar with Forex transactions, you’ll be able to do precisely the same on Bitcoins; it is just a little longer procedure along with a small much less automated.

Just like with any investment, the worth can fall, and events just like the collapse of MtGox as well as the closing down of Silk Road, negatively impacted Bitcoins; not only simply because demand was decreased but in addition due to the fact Bitcoins had been falsely linked using the organizations by urban myth. The industry appears to become becoming a lot more normal, but not necessarily regulated, as a lot more exchanges come on the web. A number of the exchanges will go the identical way as MtGox but other folks will consolidate and grow to be stronger and much more dependable. No doubt official regulation will probably be applied to Bitcoins in due course at which time the volatility is most likely to decrease.

Bitcoins can be an fascinating and potentially profitable medium to extended term investment car. Fascinating since it hasn’t but been accepted in to the mainstream of currencies or investment cars. A single factor investors like about Bitcoins is their conviction to prospects as was in gold.

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How Are your Bitcoins?

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Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, that is, an online payment system as well as works like a way to exchange foreign currency. It uses a cryptography system to secure its monetary transactions which consist of producing, transferring and supporting all its handle online. Here, each participant checks and saves payments through one transaction carried by means of the software’s on computer systems and mobiles. A similar process can also be executed when purchasing solutions, items along with other currencies.

Due to the growth of Bitcoins, a brand new threat arose about its safety. Customers of Mac who demands Bitcoins for their transactions can lose their money if they’re not cautious although installing the app , they can install accidentally a trojan. “OSX/CT” application is really a Trojan virus related to a Bitcoin application “StealthBit”. This seatbelt is operated by Mac customers for their transactions. A single can get confused whilst downloading the Trojan which appears precisely like Bitcoin.

This StealthBit application was 1st published on “GitHub”. A developer who has designed this Trojan have utilised the supply code in the StealthBit application which was uploaded towards the Github. After you set up this model of StealthBit virus, it automatically installs some add-ons into your web navigator. These destructive add-ons on browser can take confidential data from you about Bitcoins like Blockchain.com, MtGox and BTC-e. If those extensions get to capture some important information, it sends your login details for the hacker and also you will lose your wallet with out obtaining noticed.

Another story about stealing of Bitcoins also came up, when one guy installed this app and lost his 20 Bitcoins (in that time, it should worth $ 13,480). So , if you use a Mac, please pay much attention! In the event you like to use the Bitcoins app , pay attention to your browser extensions as well as “Pop-up Blocker” and even something at all from it. Soon after that. Clear all of them immediately.

Everything has pros and cons, identical applies to Bitcoins, on a single side net improvement have developed a great platform for fully digital transactions and around the other side it has also offered rise to cybercrime by producing malware of it. Internet improvement and programming employed within the greatest way can advantage lot not simply when it comes to programming, but additionally within the way you might be pondering and generating a company for goodwill of other people.

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